F 

777 


BANCROFT    LIBRARY 


By  WALTER  H.  FINK 

DIRECTOR  OF  PUBLICITY,  District  No.  15,  U.  M.  W.  A. 


THE  HORRORS  OF  THE  SHAMBLES  OF  LUDLOW 

•Louis  Tikas  and  James  Fyler,  murdered,  can  be  seen  lying  in  the  foreground.     Fyler  is 
lying  nearest  to  the  gunmen-militia,  who  are  gloating  over  their  work 


SECOND  EDITION 


Copyright,  1914 


Price  25  Cents 


4  "7 


To  Officers  and  Members  of  Organized  Labor : 
Dear  Sirs  and  Brothers: 

"The  Ludlow  Massacre,"  by  Walter  H.  Fink,  our 
publicity  agent,  is  an  authentic  and  interesting  narrative 
of  the  sufferings  of  Colorado  coal  miners,  their  wives  and 
0$      children. 

Mr.  Fink  has  been  in  active  touch  with  the  situation 

•      since  before  the  strike  and  with  his  experience  as  our 

publicity  agent,  there  is  none  better  able  to  write  a  story 

^      of  the  struggle.    We  believe  so  thoroughly  in  the  ability 

of  Mr.  Fink  to  write  the  real  story  of  the  strike  that  we 

»J       have  had  him  at  work  for  the  past  eight  months  compiling 

a  history  of  our  fight  in  Colorado  since  1876. 

"The  Ludlow  Massacre"  is  being  sold  at  twenty-five 
DT  cents,  a  little  more  than  cost,  that  every  worker  in  the 
0  country  may  be  fully  acquainted  with  the  horrors  of  the 
jj  Colorado  strike  and  we  believe  you  will  find  it  well  worth 
^  reading. 
t-  Thanking  you  for  your  enthusiastic  support  of  our 

strike,  we  art 

Yours  very  truly, 

JOHN  R.  LAWSON, 
JOHN  MCLENNAN, 

E.  L.  DOYLE, 
Policy  Committee  District  15,  U.  M.  W.  A. 


Introduction 

"The  Ludlow  Massacre "  gives  the  workers  of 
the  country  the  first  complete  and  authentic  story 
of  the  horrors  of  the  Colorado  coal  miners'  strike. 
•  Sixty-six  persons  are  known  to  have  been  killed 
and  forty-eight  wounded  in  the  numerous  battles 
and  disorders  since  the  miners  went  on  strike,  Sep- 
tember 23,  1913.  Classified,  eighteen  strikers,  ten 
mine  guards,  nineteen  mine  employes,  two  militia- 
men, three  non-combatants,  two  women  and  twelve 
children  lost  their  lives.  Twenty  had  been  killed 
prior  to  April  20,  the  date  of  the  massacre  at  Lud- 
low, and  forty-six  were  killed  during  the  next  ten 
days,  until  federal  troops  stopped  the  warfare. 

The  cost  of  the  eight  months'  industrial  conflict 
is  estimated  at  $15,000,000.  The  figures  include 
$700,000,  representing  the  state's  expense  in  main- 
taining state  troops  in  the  field  until  the  arrival  of 
the  federal  forces;  an  estimated  cost  of  $6,925,000 
to  the  union,  and  a  loss  of  " several  millions"  claimed 
by  the  operators. 

It  seems  impossible  that  here  in  supposedly 
free  America,  men,  women  and  children  must  be 
slaughtered,  mothers  with  babes  in  their  arms  must 
be  ridden  down  and  maimed  by  a  man  like  Adjutant 
General  Chase,  a  pliant  lickspittle  of  the  operators ; 
that  the  motherhood  of  the  nation  must  submit  to 
robbery,  abuse  and  fiendish  outrages;  that  men  and 
women  must  forego  their  right  of  trial  by  jury  and 
other  injustices  that  they  may  force  the  capitalist- 
owned  state  and  county  executives  to  enforce  the 
laws  and  re-establish  constitutional  government. 
But  the  fact  remains  that  the  Colorado  miners  have 
suffered  all  of  these  things  that  they  might  secure 
an  enforcement  of  state  laws. 

WALTER  H.  FINK. 


MOTHER  JONES 

82-Year-Old  Angel  of  the  Coal  Camps,  who  was  denied  her  constitutional 
rights  in  Colorado  and  imprisoned,  incommunicado,  in  a  vermin-ridden, 
rat-infested  cell. 

it 


The  Ludlow  Massacre 

It  was  Sunday  afternoon. 

The  Greek  members  of  the  Ludlow  tent  colony 
were  celebrating  their  Easter. 

John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.,  had  just  preached  the 
word  of  God  to  his  Sunday  school  class  in  New  York 
City. 

The  strikers  and  their  families  were  enjoying 
themselves  at  a  baseball  game.  They  were  a  happy, 
care-free  audience  of  twenty-one  nationalities,  think- 
ing of  nothing  but  the  freedom  from  industrial  and 
political  slavery  that  they  were  willingly  purchas- 
ing by  an  incessant  war  with  the  elements,  with  the 
imported  assassins  of  John  D.  Rockefeller,  with  the 
corporation-owned  state  and  county  officials  of  Colo- 
rado. 

It  had  been  a  day  of  joy,  a  day  such  as  victory 
in  the  strike  will  bring  them  every  twenty-four  hours 
of  the  future. 

The  baseball  game  was  almost  over  when  down 
out  of  the  hills,  where  these  strikers  had  lived  in 
hovels  like  hogs,  had  been  robbed  of  their  coal,  had 
been  deprived  of  their  political,  industrial  and  reli- 
gious liberty,  had  been  driven  into  unsafe  mines  to 
be  slaughtered,  came  the  gunmen  of  industry,  the 
hired  murderers  of  Sunday  school  teacher  and  "phil- 
anthropist" John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr. 

There  were  five  of  these  gunmen  on  horseback 
and  armed  with  high-power  rifled.  They  came  to 
break  up  the  baseball  game.  But  they  realized  that 
even  high-powered  rifles  and  machine  guns  trained 
on  the  baseball  diamond  from  the  hills  might  not  be 
able  to  combat  the  crowd  of  fans,  and  they  started 
away  chagrined. 

Some  of  the  strikers'  wives  and  children 
laughed  at  these  imported  assassins  who  were  too 
cowardly  to  carry  out  their  purpose. 

"Oh,  that's  all  right ;  have  your  fun  today;  we'll 


8  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

have  our  roast  tomorrow, "  said  one  of  the  gunmen, 
and  they  rode  away. 

Little  did  these  peaceful  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren realize  the  horrible  prophecy  this  thug  was 
making. 

They  were  accustomed  to  the  intimidation  of 
these  gunmen.  They  knew  that  these  derelicts  were 
hired  to  murder  them,  but  not  for  a  moment  did 
they  imagine  that  "our  roast  tomorrow, "  as  threat- 
ened by  the  gunmen,  was  to  ]be  their  cremation. 

They  did  not  know  that  the  gunmen  militiamen 
had  trained  six  machine  guns  on  the  Ludlow  tent 
colony  the  night  before.  They  did  not  know  that 
these  same  murderers  of  the  State  of  Colorado  and 
John  D.  Rockefeller  had  completely  surrounded  the 
camp.  They  did  not  know  that  their  massacre  was 
only  a  question  of  when  three  bombs  should  be  ex- 
ploded at  the  headquarters  of  Major  Hamrock. 

April  20th  dawned  a  typical  morning  for  the 
strikers.  Men  were  busy  with  their  chores.  Here 
and  there  throughout  the  tent  colony  could  be  heard 
the  merry  little  song  of  the  washboard.  Children 
darted  here  and  there  out  of  the  tents,  happy,  play- 
ful 300  tots,  not  knowing  that  before  the  sun  had 
set  they  were  to  go  through  the  most  terrible  holo- 
caust in  the  history  of  industrial  struggles.  In  the 
rear  of  Snodgrass '  store  men  and  boys  were  playing 
baseball. 

Since  last  September  these  people  had  been 
taught  nothing  but  peace.  Their  leaders  had  told 
them  day  after  day  that  they  could  never  hope  to 
make  the  disinterested  citizen  understand  their  side 
of  the  controversy  unless  they  strictly  obeyed  every 
law  and  "attended  to  their  own  business." 

Men  in  every  walk  of  life  who  have  investigated 
the  strike  or  spent  any  time  in  the  district  have 
talked  of  the  almost  ultra-conservatism  of  the  union 
officials.  The  men  and  women  and  children  of  the 
tent  colonies  had  absorbed  this  feeling  of  obeyance 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  9 

to  the  laws.  They  had  patiently  suffered  the  intimi- 
dation and  tortures  of  the  gunmen  and  militiamen. 

It  was  9 :55  o  'clock  that  morning  when  the  strik- 
ers and  their  wives  and  children  were  thrown  into 
a  panic  of  fear  by  the  explosion  of  a  bomb  at  the 
tent  of  Major  Hamrock.  It  was  the  signal  to  the 
gunmen  miltiamen,  surrounding  the  camp  on  all 
sides,  that  it  was  time  to  start  the  massacre  of  the 
innpcents  of  Ludlow  and  destroy  the  tent  colony. 

There  were  not  more  than  forty  rifles  in  the 
tent  colony.  The  men  owning  these  scattered  to 
the  hills  in  a  vain  effort  to  draw  the  fire  of  the  at- 
tacking party  and  save  their  loved  ones. 

At  10  o'clock  a  second  bomb  was  exploded.  Ten 
seconds  later  the  third  shot  was  fired  and  the  slaugh- 
ter of  Ludlow  began. 

Massacre  of  the  Innocents. 

None  will  know  the  agonies  of  that  day. 

From  surrounding  hills  poured  a  criss-cross 
rain  of  bullets  from  machine  guns  and  high-powered 
rifles. 

Tents  were  riddled  with  bullets  until  they  looked 
like  so  many  fishing  nets. 

Using  the  machine  guns  like  garden  hose,  the 
gunmen  cut  down  everything  that  rose  in  their  path 
of  death  as  they  swerved  from  one  end  of  the  colony 
to  the  other  and  back  again. 

Women,  driven  almost  insane,  ran  like  fright- 
ened hares  into  caves  dug  for  their  safety,  their 
babes  clutching  frantically  at  their  breasts,  their 
older  children  tearing  at  their  skirts,  while  around 
them  fell  the  explosive  bullets  of  the  gunmen- 
militiamen. 

Quarter  was  given  none  by  these  assassins. 
They  had  been  hired  at  $3  to  $7  a  day  to  do  this 
dastardly  work  of  exterminating  the  strikers,  and 
they  were  determined  to  do  it  well. 

Into  caves,  cellars,  wells,  deserted  buildings  and 


THE    LUDLOW     MASSACRE  11 

across  the  open  prairie  fled  frantic  mothers  and 
children. 

One  well  near  the  tent  colony  was  packed  with 
a  hysterical,  seething  mass  that  might  at  any  minute 
be  slaughtered. 

Out  of  one  of  these  safety  retreats  ran  little 
Frankie  Snyder,  11  years  old,  to  get  a  drink  of 
water  for  his  mother  and  little  sisters,  who  had  be- 
come ill  from  fright.  He  was  shot  through  the  head 
and  killed  instantly. 

Throughout  the  day  Louis  Tikas,  leader  of  the 
Greeks,  braved  the  hail  of  explosive  bullets,  going 
here  and  there  through  the  tents,  rescuing  women 
and  children  and  taking  them  to  places  of  safety. 

Tikas  finally  saw  that  it  was  impossible  to  save 
all  of  the  women  and  children  unless  the  firing 
stopped.  He  called  Major  Hamrock,  saloonkeeper 
in  charge  of  Colorado's  uniformed  murderers,  and 
arranged  for  a  meeting. 

Tikas  a  Murdered  Hero. 

Tikas  never  returned  from  that  conference. 

He  was  taken  prisoner.  Some  of  the  gunmen 
wanted  to  hang  this  refined,  law-abiding  Greek.  B,ut 
before  they  could  carry  out  their  purpose,  Linderfelt, 
more  bloodthirsty,  hit  Tikas  on  the  head,  crushing 
his  skull  and  killing  him  instantly.  Linderfelt  has 
admitted  that  he  hit  Tikas,  breaking  the  stock  of  his 
gun  on  the  Greek's  head. 

While  the  Greek  lay  on  the  ground  dead,  an- 
other cut-throat  kicked  him  in  the  face.  And  then, 
to  cover  up  this  terrible  murder,  they  shot  him  in 
the  back,  giving  out  the  story  that  he  was  killed 
when  he  tried  to  escape.  One  of  the  bullets  ex- 
ploded in  his  stomach,  the  jacket  lodging  under  the 
skin  and  the  bullet  tearing  its  way  through  his  ab- 
domen. 

James  Fyler,  secretary  of  the  Ludlow  union, 
was  another  striker  who  was  murdered  while  a  pris- 
oner of  the  Hamrock-Linderfelt  "  militiamen. " 


12  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

Fyler  was  one  of  the  real  heroes  of  that  day. 
With  his  life  in  danger  every  minute,  he  remained 
at  the  telephone,  giving  the  world  the  only  news  of 
the  horror.  He  was  shot  with  an  explosive  bullet, 
which  blew  out  the  front  of  his  face.  When  his  body 
was  found,  $300  which  he  had  in  his  pocket  that 
morning  was  missing. 

Another  of  the  heroes  was  Charles  Costa.  When 
the  gunmen  militia  started  their  murderous  assault, 
he,  with  others  in  the  tent  colony  who  had  guns,  ran 
to  the  hills  to  do  all  he  could  to  save  the  women  and 
children  and  their  homes. 

Costa  was  one  of  the  five  men  of  Ludlow  colony 
to  pay  the  penalty  of  death  for  fighting  for  his  con- 
stitutional rights,  thus  defying  the  rule  of  anarchy 
established  by  Governor  Ammons,  Adjutant  General 
John  Chase  and  others  of  the  operators '  tools  who 
hold  office  in  Colorado. 

Costa  was  shot  through  the  head.  As  he  lay 
there,  in  view  of  his  tented  home  where  women  and 
children  were  being  murdered  and  cremated,  dying, 
he  said  to  his  comrades,  sing  " Union  Forever." 

Dies  Singing  Song. 

They  crowded  around  him,  the  bullets  stirring 
up  the  dirt  about  their  feet  like  a  windstorm.  Costa 
joined  in  the  refrain— 

"  We've  whipped  them  in  the  North,  boys, 
We'll  whip  them  in  the  South, 
Shouting—  " 

And  Charles  Costa  was  dead.  But  the  smile  on 
his  lips  showed  that  he  was  willing  to  go. 

Had  his  comrades  known  what  was  happening 
down  in  the  tent  colony,  they  would  have  given  that 
smile  a  two-fold  meaning.  They  would  have  said 
that  he  was  smiling,  too,  because  of  the  anticipation 
of  meeting  his  wife  and  three  little  children  ID 
Heaven,  where  Bockefeller's  millions  do  not  rule, 


THE    LUDLOW     MASSACRE  13 

where  it  does  not  mean  death  to  fight  for  those  things 
which  belong  to  you. 

For,  while  Costa  was  breathing  his  last,  his 
wife  and  three  little  children  were  lying  dead  in  the 
"Black  Hole,"  their  bodies  burned  almost  beyond 
recognition  by  the  oil-fed  fire  started  by  Rocke- 
feller's murderers. 

Without  food,  without  water,  amid  a  shower  of 
bullets  that  pierced  their  places  of  shelter,  the  women 
and  children  of  Ludlow  spent  that  day. 

Among  them  were  mothers  with  babes  at  their 
breasts,  women  who  were  to  become  mothers  that 
day  and  the  next  and  the  next. 

The  militia  knew  there  were  no  men  in  these  re- 
treats. They  knew  there  were  no  arms  there  to  re- 
turn their  fusillade  of  bullets.  They  knew  that  in 
those  places  there  were  only  women  and  children, 
but  they  were  the  wives  and  daughters  of  "those 
d —  red-necks."  In  the  eyes  of  the  gunmen  militia 
that  removed  all  questions  of  sex.  It  was  sufficient 
reason  to  slaughter  them  if  they  could. 

Refugees  peering  from  their  caves,  wondering 
whether  this  hail  of  lead  would  never  cease,  were 
paralyzed  with  fear  about  7  o'clock  that  evening 
when  they  saw  a  militiaman  crawl  up  to  a  tent  on 
the  outskirts  of  the  tent  colony  and  set  it  afire  with 
a  blazing  torch. 

Slaughtered  Babes  Cremated. 

Like  a  cyclone,  the  flames  swept  over  the  tented 
homes,  feeding  on  the  oil  of  Rockefeller  which  sat- 
urated them  and  seemingly  gloating  over  the  feast 
provided  by  the  women  and  children  whom  they 
burned  and  roasted  and  clasped  between  their  jaws 
of  death  until  they  were  an  inanimate  mass  of  crisp 
flesh  and  bones. 

Here  and  there  the  fire  refused  to  spread  and 
up  would  spring  another  assassin  with  a  torch  to 
set  it  afire. 


0  §2 

H  Si 

Z  Md 

u  %ffi 

I-  ®  p 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  15 

In  small,  ill-ventilated  caves,  in  wells,  in  de- 
serted farm  houses,  on  the  open  prairie,  the  women 
and  children  of  Ludlow  spent  that  night,  mourning 
the  loss  of  fathers,  brothers,  husbands,  of  new-born 
babes,  who  had  come  into  the  world  that  day  only 
to  be  murdered  and  cremated  by  the  Colorado  as- 
sassins, and  all  around  them  fell  the  bullets  of  the 
uniformed  murderers. 

Nothing  so  wanton  has  ever  been  known  as  the 
terrible  thirst  for  blood  of  these  assassins.  They 
knew  that  these  women  and  children  had  no  food, 
no  water.  But  they  continued  their  firing  with  the 
seeming  purpose  of  driving  the  famished  mothers 
and  tots  into  the  open  for  food  and  water  that 
they  might  also  shoot  them  down. 

Probably  the  most  heinous  feature  of  this  mas- 
sacre was  the  refusal  of  the  militia  officers  to  allow 
doctors  or  Eed  Cross  nurses  to  minister  to  the 
wounded. 

Physicians  who  went  there  under  flags  of  truce 
soon  after  the  slaughter  began,  were  driven  back 
by  bullets. 

Flags  of  the  Eed  Cross  Society  were  shot  into 
shreds  with  the  same  utter  disregard  as  the  Amer- 
ican flag. 

Shot  at  American  Flag. 

It  is  not  generally  known,  but  it  is  a  matter  of 
fact  that  the  Stars  and  Stripes — the  flag  of  our  na- 
tion— was  fired  upon  when  Linderfelt  the  Butcher 
and  his  hell-hounds  turned  loose  their  machine 
guns  and  rifles  upon  the  unprotected  tented  city  of 
Ludlow,  wiping  it  out  of  existence  and  killing  men, 
women  and  children — mostly  the  latter. 

The  unionists  had  three  American  flags  flying 
to  the  breeze  on  that  bloody  Monday. 

But  this  made  no  difference  to  the  gunmen  who 
were  wearing  the  state's  uniforms. 


16  THE    LUDLOW     MASSACRE 

Their  deadly  weapons  tore  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
from  their  masts,  just  as  if  they  had  been  so  many 
rags. 

They  were  burned  when  the  torch  was  applied 
to  the  canvas  homes. 

It  is  a  matter  of  general  knowledge  that  the 
men  under  Chase,  when  they  were  sent  into  the  field, 
never  raised  the  American  flag  until  they  were  in 
Ludlow  several  months. 

Tuesday  morning  several  undertakers  went 
from  Trinidad  to  the  scene  of  the  catastrophe,  but 
were  driven  back  by  explosive  bullets. 

Eailroad  men  and  passengers  appealed  fran- 
tically to  state  officials  to  do  something  for  the 
men,  women  and  children  who  were  lying  along  the 
railroad  tracks  dead  and  wounded. 

For  two  days  the  bodies  of  Tikas  and  Fyler 
lay  exposed.  But  no  appeal  would  force  the  state 
officers  to  take  care  of  the  dead  and  wounded. 

The  fact  that  none  of  the  bodies  reported  by 
railroad  men  could  be  found  Wednesday,  as  well  as 
the  testimony  of  Mrs.  Pearl  Jolly,  sometimes  called 
the  lt heroine  of  Ludlow/'  explains  this  action. 

Mrs.  Jolly,  with  other  women  and  children, 
escaped  to  a  farm  house  late  Monday  afternoon. 
The  next  day,  when  the  gunmen  were  looting  the 
ruins  of  the  tent  colony,  she  says  she  saw  them 
gathering  bodies  and  plaoing  them  in  a  huge  pile. 

Dead  Burned  in  Oil. 

When  they  had  completed  their  search,  she 
says  they  poured  oil  on  them  and  then  burned  the 
bodies.  There  are  more  than  fifty  women  and  chil- 
dren missing  and  it  is  believed  that  all  traces  of  their 
murder  were  obliterated  by  the  militia  on  the  huge 
funeral  pyre. 

Mrs.  Jolly  during  the  battle  went  here  and 
there  through  the  tent  colony,  rescuing  women  and 
children,  and  aiding  the  sick  and  wounded.  Although 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACKE  17 

she  wore  a  Bed  Cross  insignia  on  her  arm,  the  uni- 
formed gunmen  tried  to  kill-  her,  one  bullet  tearing 
off  the  heel  of  her  shoe. 

John  R.  Lawson,  National  Board  member  of 
the  mine  workers,  went  to  Ludlow  Monday  and 
Tuesday  to  save  the  women  and  children,  and  the 
militia  riddled  his  flag  of  truce  and  drove  him  back. 

William  Snyder  was  coming  from  the  tent  col- 
ony Tuesday  morning  with  his  family,  the  body  of 
his  dead  son  on  one  arm  and  his  baby  daughter  in 
the  other,  when  he  was  discovered  by  some  of  the 
gunmen.  One  of  the  gunmen  pointed  a  gun  at  him 
and  said,  "—  -  you,  I  have  a  notion  to  kill  you, 
too." 

Dave  Stuart,  a  young  boy,  spent  Monday  and 
Monday  night  in  the  cellar  of  the  Snodgrass  store. 
When  he  went  to  the  depot  to  go  to  Trinidad,  he 
was  lined  up  with  other  boys,  from  ten  to  twelve 
years  of  age,  and  told  that  the  gunmen  militia  were 
going  to  use  them  for  target  practice. 

Ludlow  that  morning  presented  a  deep  contrast 
to  the  day  before. 

Where  for  seven  months  1,200  strikers  had 
lived  in  peace,  had  subsisted  on  as  little  as  possible, 
and  had  been  happy  in  the  realization  that  the  dawn 
of  a  new  day  was  at  hand,  now  stood  the  charred 
ruins  of  their  homes. 

Where  the  day  before  300  children  had  romped 
and  played  and  had  been  happy  now  lay  the  dis- 
torted, roasted  bodies  of  some  of  them  and  their 
mothers. 

Louis  Tikas,  than  whom  there  was  none  among 
the  strikers  more  beloved,  lay  battered  and  dead 
along  the  railroad  track,  while  the  day  before  he 
had  been  visiting  each  tent,  adding  cheer  to  the  men 
and  their  wives,  trudging  along  with  three  or  four 
children  hanging  to  him,  each  one  of  them  wanting 
him  to  come  and  help  play  their  own  particular 
game. 


18  THE    LUDLO.W    MASSACRE 

There  lay  the  ruins  of  the  Ludlow  tent  colony, 
the  largest  in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  none 
knew  or  ever  will  know  how  many  of  its  family  of 
1,200  paid  the  penalty  of  fighting  for  their  consti- 
tutional rights  in  corporation-ridden  Colorado. 

Trinidad  men  who  went  to  repair  the  telephone 
lines,  cut  by  the  murderers  that  the  outside  world 
might  not  know  of  their  work  of  carnage,  told  one 
of  the  many  pitiful  stories  of  the  massacre. 

Tuesday  they  started  toward  Ludlow  to  repair 
the  wires.  They  were  going  along  the  road  when 
they  saw  a  little  girl  lying  at  the  side  of  the  road- 
way. 

She  was  lying  there  with  the  side  of  her  head 
badly  burned.  In  one  hand  she  clasped  a  doll  while 
the  other  arm  was  held  across  her  eyes. 

Just  as  the  linemen  were  about  to  pick  up  the 
little  sufferer,  one  of  the  brutal,  murdering  gunmen 
of  Linderfelt's  command  stepped  up  to  the  lineman 
and  told  him  to  leave  the  little  girl  where  she  was. 

None  know  what  became  of  the  little  tot.  It  is 
believed  that  she  contributed  to  the  blaze  on  the 
funeral  pyre  erected  to  John  D.  Kockefeller  Jr., 
Sunday  school  teacher  and  philanthropist. 

Thirty  women  and  children  who  escaped  to  the 
Powell  ranch  were  held  prisoners  there  until  Tues- 
day night.  They  had  nothing  to  eat  or  drink  and 
appealed  frantically  to  Trinidad  for  relief.  Appeals 
were  sent  to  Major  Hamrock  "to  have  mercy,  for 
God's  sake."  Acting  Governor  Fitzgarrald,  who 
vies  with  Ammons  for  the  honor  of  being  the  real 
spineless  executive  of  Colorado,  finally  ordered 
Saloonkeeper  Hamrock  to  release  the  women. 

Belief  automobiles  started  from  Trinidad  at 
about  the  same  time  several  wagons  left  Aguilar 
to  their  assistance.  When  the  wagon  approached 
the  house,  Mrs.  Pearl  Jolly,  wearing  a  Red  Cross 
insignia  on  her  arm,  went  to  meet  it.  She  was  shot 
in  the  arm  made  prominent  by  the  Red  Cross  band. 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  19 

The  women,  however,  made  their  escape  after  a 
forty-eight-hour  siege. 

Mrs.  M.  H.  Thomas  was  another  of  the  women 
who  was  shot  at  by  the  murderers.  She,  with  other 
women  and  children,  escaped  to  a  nearby  ranch, 
where  most  of  them  were  forced  to  sleep  in  filthy 
stable  stalls  to  evade  the  exploding  bullets  from 
machine  guns  and  high-powered  rifles.  When  they 
ran  for  shelter  Mrs.  Thomas  was  so  close  to  death 
that  a  bullet  clipped  out  a  part  of  her  hair,  and 
around  the  feet  of  her  two  little  children  played  the 
machine  gun  bullets. 

A  freight  train  that  came  down  the  track  about 
noon  Tuesday  enabled  this  party  of  refugees  to 
escape.  Knowing  that  the  train  would  be  between 
the  gunmen  and  her  people,  Mrs.  Thomas  ran  to 
the  well  and  told  others  to  try  to  make  their  escape. 
The  entire  party  got  away,  but  it  was  only  because 
of  poor  marksmanship  on  the  part  of  the  gunmen, 
who  riddled  the  air  about  them  with  hundreds  of 
bullets. 

Eealizing  that  they  had  been  betrayed  by  the 
state  of  Colorado  and  that  they  could  hope  to  secure 
no  protection  from  its  militia,  union  men  sent  out 
an  official  call  to  arms,  asking  workers  of  the  state 
and  country  to  arm  themselves  and  be  ready  to 
march  at  any  minute. 

The  Call  to  Arms. 

The  official  call  was  as  follows : 

Denver,  Colo.,  April  22,  1914. 

Organize  the  men  in  your  community  in  com- 
panies of  volunteers  to  protect  the  workers  of 
Colorado  against  the  murder  and  cremation  of 
men,  women  and  children  by  armed  assassins  in 
the  employ  of  coal  corporations,  serving  under 
the  guise  of  state  militiamen. 

Gather  together  for  defensive  purposes  all 
arms  and  ammunition  legally  available.  Send 
name  of  leader  of  your  company  and  actual  num- 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  21 

ber  of  men  enlisted  at  once  by  wire,  phone  or 
mail,  to  W.  T.  Hickey,  Secretary  of  State  Fed- 
eration of  Labor. 

Hold  all  companies  subject  to  order. 

People  having  arms  to  spare  for  these  de- 
fensive measures  are  requested  to  furnish  same 
to  local  companies,  and,  where  no  company  ex- 
ists, send  them  to  the  State  Federation  of  Labor. 

The  state  is  furnishing  us  no  protection  and 
we  must  protect  ourselves,  our  wives  and  chil- 
dren, from  these  murderous  assassins.  We  seek 
no  quarrel  with  the  state  and  we  expect  to  break 
no  law;  we  intend  to  exercise  our  lawful  right 
as  citizens,  to  defend  our  homes  and  our  consti- 
tutional rights. 

JOHN  R.  LAWSON,  U.  M.  W.  A. 

JOHN  McLENNAN 

E.  L.  DOYLE 

JOHN  RAMSAY 

W.  T.  HICKEY,  Secy.  State  Fed.  of  Lab.     - 

E.  R.  HOAGE 

T.  W.  TAYLOR 

CLARENCE  MOOREHOUSE 

ERNEST  MILLS,  Secy.-Treas.  W.  F.  of  M. 

Offers  of  armed  assistance  came  from  all  over 
the  country,  and  the  workers  responded  just  as 
readily  and  liberally  with  contributions  to  relieve 
the  suffering  men,  women  and  children  who  had  been 
made  homeless  and  left  without  food  or  clothing 
by  the  terrible  massacre. 

One  of  the  best  descriptions  of  the  Ludlow  mas- 
sacre was  given  by  Godfrey  Irwin,  a  young  elec- 
trical engineer,  in  an  interview  with  a  New  York 
World  reporter,  which  appeared  in  that  paper 
May  5.  Irwin  was  employed  by  the  Electrical 
Transportation  and  Railroad  Company  in  Trinidad. 
The  interview  as  it  appeared  in  the  New  York 
World  follows : 


22  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACKE 

"On  the  day  of  the  Ludlow  battle  a  chum 
and  myself  left  the  house  of  the  Rev.  J.  0.  Fer- 
ris, the  Episcopal  minister  with  whom  I  boarded 
in  Trinidad,  for  a  long  tramp  through  the  hills. 
We  walked  fourteen  miles,  intending  to  take  the 
Colorado  &  Southern  Eailway  back  to  Trinidad 
from  Ludlow  station. 

"We  were  going  down  a  trail  on  the  moun- 
tain side  above  the  tent  city  at  Ludlow  when  my 
chum  pulled  my  sleeve  and  at  the  same  instant 
we  heard  shooting.  The  militia  were  coming  out 
of  Hastings  Canyon  and  firing  as  they  came.  We 
lay  flat  behind  a  rock  and  after  a  few  minutes  I 
raised  my  hat  aloft  on  a  stick.  Instantly  bullets 
came  in  our  direction.  One  penetrated  my  hat. 
The  militiamen  must  have  been  watching  the  hill- 
side through  glasses  and  thought  my  old  hat  be- 
trayed the  whereabouts  of  a  sharpshooter  of  the 
miners. 

Saw  Tikas  Murdered. 

"Then  came  the  killing  of  Louis  Tikas,  the 
Greek  leader  of  the  strikers.  We  saw  the  militia- 
men parley  outside  the  tent  city,  and,  a  few  min- 
utes later,  Tikas  came  out  to  meet  them.  We 
watched  them  talking.  Suddenly  an  officer 
raised  his  rifle,  gripping  the  barrel,  and  felled 
Tikas  with  the  butt. 

"Tikas  fell  face  downward.  As  he  lay  there 
we  saw  the  militiamen  fall  back.  Then  they 
aimed  their  rifles  and  deliberately  fired  them  into 
the  unconscious  man's  body.  It  was  the  first 
murder  I  had  ever  seen,  for  it  was  a  murder  and 
nothing  less.  Then  the  miners  ran  about  in  the 
tent  colony  and  women  and  children  scuttled  for 
safety  in  the  pits  which  afterward  trapped  them. 

"We  watched  from  our  rock  shelter  while 
the  militia  dragged  up  their  machine  guns  and 
poured  a  murderous  fire  into  the  arroyo  from  a 
height  by  Water  Tank  Hill  above  the  Ludlow  de- 
pot. Then  came  the  firing  of  the  tents. 

"I  «,m  positive  that  by  no  possible  chance 
could  they  have  been  set  ablaze  accidentally.  The 
militiamen  were  thick  about  the  northwest  cor- 
ner of  the  colony  where  the  fire  started  and  we 
could  see  distinctly  from  our  lofty  observation 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  23 

place  what  looked  like  a  blazing  torch  waved  in 
the  midst  of  militia  a  few  seconds  before  the 
general  conflagration  swept  through  the  place. 
What  followed  everybody  knows. 

"  Sickened  by  what  we  had  seen,  we  took  a 
freight  back  into  Trinidad.  The  town  buzzed 
with  indignation.  To  explain  in  large  part  the 
sympathies  of  even  the  best  people  in  the  section 
with  the  miners,  it  must  be  said  that  there  is  good 
evidence  that  many  of  the  so-called  'militiamen' 
are  only  gunmen  and  thugs  wearing  the  uniform 
to  give  them  a  show  of  authority.  They  are  the 
toughest  lot  I  ever  saw. 

"No  one  can  legally  enlist  in  the  Colorado 
state  militia  till  he  has  been  a  year  in  the  state, 
and  many  of  the  'militiamen'  admitted  to  me  they 
had  been  drafted  in  by  a  Denver  detective 
agency.  Lieutenant  Linderfelt  boasted  that  he 
was  'going  to  lick  the  miners  or  wipe  them  off 
the  earth.'  In  Trinidad  the  miners  never  gave 
any  trouble.  It  was  not  till  the  militia  came  into 
town  that  the  trouble  began." 

One  of  the  refugees  who  arrived  in  Trinidad 
told  the  following  story  of  the  catastrophe: 

"Monday  morning  when  the  people  of  Lud- 
low  and  the  tent  colony  first  got  up  they  noticed 
that  the  gunmen  were  riding  up  and  down  in 
great  haste,  but  thought  nothing  more  of  it. 
The  strikers  were  sitting  around  in  the  same 
peaceable  manner  as  usual. 

"About  8:40  o'clock  four  ' gunmen-melish ' 
were  seen  to  go  up  to  the  tent  colony.  They  were 
hunting  for  one  of  the  strikers.  Louis  Tikas 
told  them  if  they  would  get  a  sheriff  and  a  war- 
rant, all  right,  but  otherwise  they  couldn't  have 
the  party  they  were  looking  for.  They  went 
away,  and,  about  9  o'clock,  gunmen  were  seen 
riding  from  the  direction  of  Berwind.  They  rode 
to  the  C.  &  S.  bridge  and  planted  four  gatling 
guns  so  they  were  pointing  at  the  colony  from 
the  south.  About  9:10  o'clock  there  were  three 
bombs  of  dynamite  fired,  then,  immediately,  open 
fire  was  made  upon  the  tent  colony.  The  shots 
rained  continuously  from  that  on.  Linderfelt 
was  in  the  Ludlow  depot  with  twelve  other 


Above — "Little  Pete,"  successor  to  Louis  Tikas  as  leader  of  the  Greeks. 
Below — Amando  Pelizarri,  national  organizer  and  leader  of  the  Italians. 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  25 

'braves,'  and  shot  all  day  long  from  the  depot 
window.  There  were  about  800  'scabs'  with  their 
caps  and  candles  on,  directly  out  of  the  mine,  who 
were  armed  with  Winchesters  and  made  battle 
upon  the  tent  colony. 

Threatened  to  Kill  All. 

"About  6  o'clock  the  door  of  the  store  was 
battered  in,  the  supplies  were  confiscated,  and 
then  the  store  building  was  set  fire  to.  Prom 
that  there  were  four  other  places  within  the  tent 
colony  that  were  set  fire.  Linderfelt  was  heard 
to  remark,  "There  won't  be  a  God-damned  red- 
neck left  when  we  get  through ;  we  '11  clean  them 
all."  During  the  day  he  was  asked  how  many 
were  killed.  He  said,  "There  are  four  of  my 
men  killed  and  three  injured;  them  Greeks  are 
damn  crack  shots.  I  went  out  with  five  men  and 
they  shot  three  of  them,  one  through  the  neck 
and  another  through  the  shoulder.' 

"Another  gunmen  leader  was  asked  if  there 
was  anyone  left  in  the  tents.  He  said,  'There 
were,  four  men  in  there;  one  of  them  sneaked 
out  to  get  some  ammunition  and  I  got  him ;  then 
two  little  girls  came  out  all  dressed  in  white.' 
The  other  party  said,  'You  surely  didn't  shoot  at 
the  little  girls?'  Gunman  said,  'Your  God  damn 
right  I  did.' 

"When  No.  2  Colorado  &  Southern  train  ar- 
rived from  the  north,  they  were  still  firing  on 
the  colony.  The  tents  were  all  ablaze.  At  the 
time  of  the  first  shooting  the  women  and  children 
had  gone  into  the  cellars  where  they  would  be 
safe. 

"As  the  tents  burned,  women  and  children 
were  seen  to  run  out  in  the  light  of  the  blaze, 
and  just  as  fast  as  they  came  out  they  were  shot 
down.  The  gatling  guns  would  rain  bullets  down 
on  them.  There  were  six  machine  guns  pelting 
bullets  all  the  time. 

"The  screams  of  the  women  and  children 
could  be  heard  at  the  depot;  they  cried  for 
mercy,  'Oh,  please  don't  kill  us.'  'Oh,  mamma, 
what  shall  we  do?'  But  they  were  shown  no 
mercy.  As  they  ran  out  in  the  glare  of  the  fire, 
bullets  were  rained  on  them,  and  then  great  yells 


26  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

would  go  up  from  these  depraved  gunmen  whose 
lust  for  blood  even  led  them  to  kill  women  and 
babes.  Every  man  who  has  any  honor  about  him, 
every  man  all  over  the  state  and  the  nation  should 
raise  up  in  arms  against  this  awful  tyranny. 

"One  can  hardly  imagine  such  awfulness, 
and  yet  it  happened,  and  strong  men  could  hardly 
control  their  voice  for  emotion  in  talking  of  the 
awful  deeds  which  were  done  in  Ludlow  today. 
One  man  said,  'If  a  little  dog  had  been  standing 
at  Ludlow  and  witnessed  the  scene  which  took 
place  there  he  must  needs  weep  for  the  awful- 
ness  of  it  all.'  ' 

John  E.  Lawson,  active  head  of  the  strike  at 
the  time  of  the  horror,  bitterly  denounced  the  gun- 
men militia: 

Robbed  the  Dead. 

"The  hired  assassins  who  are  being  paid  $3 
per  day  by  the  C.  F.  &  I.  and  other  companies 
for  murdering  innocent  people  do  not  understand 
that  women  and  children  are*  entitled  to  any  re- 
spect or  protection,"  said  Lawson. 

"These  beasts  in  human  form  have  mur- 
dered these  people  by  turning  rapid-fire  machine 
guns  on  the  tent  colony  and  with  high-power 
rifles  and  explosive  bullets,  and,  last  but  not 
least,  they  have  robbed  the  dead  and  plundered 
the  tents  of  the  colony  of  everything  of  value  and 
set  the  tent  colony  afire  to  obliterate  as  far  as 
possible  the  bullet  wounds  on  the  dead  and  the 
tents  that  were  filled  with  bullet  holes. 

"I  have  been  informed  that  some  of  these 
Baldwin  gunmen  have  even  used  dynamite  to  de- 
stroy the  charred  remains  of  innocent  women  and 
children,  so  that  the  world  will  never  know  the 
awful  truth  of  the  horrible  murders. 

"No  one  can  fully  realize  the  extent  of  this 
brutal  outrage  of  shooting  into  the  Ludlow  tent 
colony  in  broad  daylight  and  with  the  full  knowl- 
edge that  the  tent  colony  contained  many  women 
and  children  and  men  who  believed  that  they 
would  be  perfectly  safe  if  they  remained  in  their 
humble  homes. 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  '27 

"It  is  unthinkable  and  unbelievable  that 
there  are  fiends  in  human  form  that  could  be 
induced  to  commit  these  hellish  acts.  The  cold- 
blooded murder  of  Louis  Tikas  does  not  come  as 
a  surprise  to  the  people  who  knew  him  and  his 
work,  for  Linderfelt  and  others  in  the  Colorado 
National  Guard  said  that  they  would  kill  him  the 
first  time  they  got  a  chance. 

"John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.,  may  ease  his  con- 
science by  attending  Sunday  school  regularly  in 
New  York,  but  he  will  never  be  acquitted  of 
committing  the  horrible  atrocities  that  have  oc- 
curred in  a  country  such  as  America,  and  he  will 
be  convicted  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion  for  his 
part  in  the  Colorado  murders." 

The  report  of  the  Women's  Peace  Association  reveals 
some  of  the  horrors  of  Ludlow,  and,  likewise,  what  repre- 
sentative women  of  the  State  of  Colorado  think  of  it. 
The  report  of  the  committee  is  all  the  more  significant 
because  of  its  personnel.  None  of  these  women  are  mem- 
bers of  organized  labor.  They  are  in  no  way  identified 
with  the  movement.  The  association  is  made  up  entirely 
of  society  and  professional  women. 

The  report  is,  in  part,  as  follows : 

May  7,  1914. 
Hon.  Elias  M.  Ammons,  Governor: 

Sir :  The  undersigned  committee,  appointed  by 
the  Women's  Peace  Association,  and  duly  commis- 
'sioned  by  you,  has  returned  from  Ludlow,  and  sub- 
mits the  following  report: 

Our  investigations  comprised  interviews  with 
militia  officers  and  men,  strike  leaders  and  strikers, 
and  with  the  District  Attorney  and  various  citizens 
of  Las  Animas  County,  and  we  beg  to  supplement 
this  report  with  affidavits  herewith  attached. 

Whatever  feeling  we  may  have  had  that  accounts 
of  the  mine  war  had  been  exaggerated  were  soon 
dispelled.  We  declare  to  you  that  the  half  has  not 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  29 

been  told,  and  insist  that  any  full  and  true  relation 
of  actual  events  must  expect  to  suffer  by  reason  of 
their  very  incredibility. 

There  is  little  use  in  recounting  the  details  of 
the  Ludlow  massacre.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  we  place 
the  entire  blame  for  this  horror  on  the  imported 
assassins  who  masqueraded  as  sons  of  Colorado  in 
the  uniform  of  the  National  Guard. 

Massacre  Deliberately  Planned. 

There  is  no  question  in  our  minds  but  that  the 
attack  on  the  tent  colony  was  planned  with  care  and 
executed  in  cold  blood.  No  sooner  was  the  main 
body  of  the  militia  withdrawn  from  the  strike  dis- 
trict than  a  new  company  was  hastily  formed  out 
of  the  mine  guards,  mine  employes,  itinerant  gun- 
men and  slum  sweepings.  Known  as  Troop  "A," 
this  officerless,  un-uniformed  detachment,  together 
with  the  desperadoes  under  the  command  of  Linder- 
felt  in  Company  "B,"  formed  the  attacking  force. 

The  three  machine  guns  were  planted  in  posi- 
tion prior  to  Monday  morning.  We  were  unable  to 
discover  that  a  single  gun  was  fired  prior  to  the 
explosion  of  the  three  bombs  that  Major  Hamrock 
admitted  to  be  his  own  signal  for  the  battle  to  begin. 
The  utter  unpreparedness  of  the  strikers  for  fight- 
ing is  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  many  of  the 
women  and  children  were  still  in  bed,  and  were  com- 
pelled to  flee  for  their  lives  half  dressed. 

We  also  found  that  Major  Hamrock  tested  the 
range  of  his  machine  guns  by  firing  into  the  first 
line  of  tents,  and  that  later  in  the  engagement  sol- 
diers soaked  paper  in  oil  and  used  these  torches  to 
spread  the  conflagration. 

Wholesale  looting  followed  the  massacre,  and 
one  of  the  pictures  painted  for  us  by  homeless 
women  was  that  of  the  soldiers  carrying  trunks  to 
the  station,  dancing  with  stolen  blankets  about  their 
heads  to  the  music  of  a  stolen  accordion,  and  grab- 


30  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

bing  here  and  there  in  the  tents  for  valuables.  In 
support  of  these  assertions,  we  direct  your  atten- 
tion specifically  to  the  affidavits  of  Mrs.  Pedregon, 
Mrs.  Bertoloti  and  Mrs.  Chavez,  whose  savings  and 
household  goods  were  taken,  and  to  that  of  Mrs.  Ed 
Tonner,  which  tells  how  a  soldier  lighted  a  broom 
soaked  in  oil  and  set  fire  to  the  tent  in  which  she 
huddled  with  her  five  children. 

Baby  Born  as  Mother  Flees. 

Fifty  of  these  hunted  women,  we  beg  to  state, 
were  about  to  become  mothers,  and  one  unfortunate 
actually  gave  birth  to  her  baby  while  trying. to  es- 
cape the  hail  of  bullets  from  Hamrock's  machine 
guns.  Many  ran  eight  or  ten  miles  in  their  mad 
terror,  and  others  huddled  in  wells  and  holes  for 
eighteen  hours  without  food. 

In  many  instances  we  are  compelled  to  disagree 
absolutely  with  your  military  committee.  Their  re- 
port states  that  the  Greeks  ruled  the  colony,  while 
we  assert  that  no  nationality  had  a  dominant  voice 
— the  twenty-six  races  living  and  acting  in  a  spirit 
of  fraternity  remarkable  to  behold.  That  Louis 
Tikas  was  the  recognized  leader  of  the  colony  was 
not  due  to  the  fact  of  his  being  a  Greek,  but  to  his 
ability  and  the  love  and  confidence  he  inspired.  At 
this  point,  we  cannot  too  strongly  condemn  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  death.  No  doubt  remains  in  our 
minds  that  Tikas  and  Fyler,  the  two  leaders,  were 
murdered  while  in  the  custody  of  soldiers,  and  that 
the  Greek  was  deliberately  clubbed  by  Lieutenant 
Linderfelt  while  standing  helpless  and  unarmed. 
Not  in  the  annals  of  civilized  warfare  is  there  record 
of  anything  more  inhuman  than  the  cold-blooded 
killing  of  these  two  prisoners. 

We  must  also  disagree  with  the  military  com- 
mittee in  the  matter  of  the  death  of  Frankie  Snyder. 
According  to  the  report,  the  father  of  the  boy  told 
them  that  Frankie  was  killed  while  facing  the  ar- 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  31 

royo,  meaning  that  the  strikers  had  shot  him;  also 
that  the  elder  Snyder  told  them  that  the  Greeks 
planned  the  battle  in  advance,  and  that  they  were 
to  blame  for  the  entire  trouble. 

Talking  face  to  face  with  us,  and  signing  an 
affidavit,  Snyder  declared  that  Frankie  had  been 
shot  down  by  the  soldiers  while  cradling  his  little 
sister  in  his  arms.  He  also  charged  the  militia  with 
firing  the  first  shot,  insisting  that  the  attack  was 
unexpected,  and  his  bitterness  was  extreme  in  tell- 
ing how  the  militia  dashed  into  the  tent  where  the 
dead  boy  lay  and  called  the  weeping  mother  un- 
printable names. 

We  cannot  believe  that  Snyder  ever  told  the 
military  committee  any  such  tale  as  they  print,  and, 
if  he  did  so,  it  must  have  been  under  the  same  com- 
pulsion that  induced  one  striker  to  dig  what  he 
thought  to  be  his  own  grave. 

Brutal  Officers  Condemned. 

We  disagree  also  with  the  brutal  and  contemp- 
tuous language  in  which  Messrs.  Boughton,  Banks 
and  Van  Cise  dismiss  the  strikers  as  "ignorant,  law- 
less and  savage  South  European  peasants. "  This 
is  the  judgment  of  men  who  have  never  known  what 
it  is  to  work,  whose  activities  are  entirely  parasitic, 
and  who  have  no  other  standard  of  comparison  than 
the  rich  and  the  idle. 

We  declare  to  you  that  the  Ludlow  tent  colony, 
from  what  we  learned,  was  a  community  of  decent 
people,  passionately  proud  of  their  little  tents,  do- 
mestic to  the  last  degree,  generous  and  loving  in 
their  dealings  with  one  another,  and,  altogether, 
evincing  in  every  relation  of  life  a  brotherhood  that 
shames  many  a  Christian  American. 

There  is  no  question  in  our  minds  that  Colorado 
has  in  them  the  making  of  a  virile,  intelligent  citi- 
zenship, and  it  is  in  this  connection  that  we  want  to 
point  out  to  you  how  absolutely  the  state  has  failed 


32  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACEE 

in  its  duty  to  these  foreigners  who  have  been  brought 
into  our  midst  for  assimilation. 

There  is  no  question  that  the  coal  companies 
have  violated  every  law  on  the  statute  books  for  the 
protection  of  their  employes.  From  the  commence- 
ment of  their  residence  in  this  land  of  the  free,  these 
people  from  other  lands  have  been  made  the  victims 
of  unbearable  oppressions.  Herded  like  cattle, 
cheated  on  the  weight  of  coal  they  produced,  the  vic- 
tims of  extortion  at  every  turn,  and  unprotected  by 
proper  safety  appliances  and  improvements,  they 
were  given  small  conception  of  the  justice  that  is 
the  keystone  in  our  national  arch.  Their  sole  con- 
tact with  the  spirit  of  citizenship  was  during  elec- 
tions, when  they  were  driven  to  the  polls  by  super- 
intendents and  voted  like  sheep. 

Nor  when  the  militia  came  into  the  district,  at 
your  command,  was  the  situation  bettered  in  the 
slightest  degree.  We  talked  with  any  number  of 
women  who  told  us  that  they  welcomed  the  soldiery 
at  first,  feeling  that  they  came  to  restore  peace  and 
promote  justice.  But  when  they  saw  among  the 
troops  the  very  mine  guards,  detectives  and  gunmen 
that  had  been  persecuting  them,  and  when  these 
men  commenced  to  beat,  insult,  abuse  and  arrest 
them,  their  welcome  turned  to  hatred. 

Flag  Trampled  in  Dust. 

.  Even  the  children  are  imbibing  a  spirit  of  hatred 
and  bitterness  that  will  be  detrimental  to  their 
growth  as  desirable  citizens.  We  insist  that  these 
foreigners  learn  to  love  the  flag,  yet,  when  the  union 
women  of  Trinidad  took  $300  of  their  saved  pennies 
and  bought  the  Stars  and  Stripes  to  fly  over  a  pa- 
rade, they  were  ridden  down  by  the  soldiery,  and 
the  national  colors  trampled  in  the  dust.  Women 
and  children  were  given  sabre  scars  that  they  will 
carry  to  the  grave;  a  16-year-old  girl  was  kicked 
in  the  breast  by  the  commanding  officer,  and  others 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  33 

were  maimed  by  having  gun  butts  dropped  on  their 
feet. 

We  could  wish  to  have  pages  to  recite  the  tor- 
tures and  injustices  to  which  the  men,  women  and 
children  of  the  strikers  were  subjected.  Many  were 
arrested  without  warrant  or  apparent  reason,  thrown 
into  jail  and  actually  forgotten  as  far  as  any  hearing 
was  concerned.  The  following  case  may  be  cited  as 
typical. 

Mrs.  Mary  M.  Thomas,  a  frail  little  Welsh 
woman,  and  the  mother  of  two  little  children,  was 
arrested  on  the  streets  of  Trinidad,  subjected  to 
abuse  and  insult,  and  confined  for  three  weeks  in  a 
vermin-ridden  cell.  Food  was  thrown  to  her  as 
though  she  had  been  a  beast.  Her  letters  of  appeal 
went  unanswered,  and  she  was  released  at  last  with- 
out one  word  of  explanation  or  apology. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  recount  the  experiences 
of  "Mother"  Jones.  Eegardless  of  what  one  may 
think  of  her  opinions  or  her  utterances,  surely  hu- 
manity must  sicken  at  the  imprisonment  of  this  old 
woman  of  82  in  a  rat-infested  basement,  held  on  no 
charge  whatever,  and  denied  the  right  to  see  friends 
or  counsel,  and  all  this  time  guarded  by  four  stal- 
wart troopers. 

Try  as  we  could,  we  failed  to  find  that  the  coal 
companies  had  the  slightest  conception  of  their  duty 
to  these  aliens  for  whose  presence  in  the  state  they 
are  solely  responsible.  Out  of  their  vicious  insist- 
ence upon  profits  alone,  they  disregarded  the  fact 
that  these  people  and  their  children  constituted  a 
problem  in  citizenship  that  must  be  solved  if  our  so- 
cial structure  is  to  endure.  They  have  taught  hate 
and  violence,  prevented  understanding  and  educa- 
tion, all  to  the  result  that  the  people  of  Colorado 
are  now  confronting  a  danger  that  can  only  be 
averted  by  our  utmost  justice  and  wisest  statesman- 
ship. 

We  are  glad,  indeed,  to  be  able  to  report  that 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  35 

the  real  Sons  of  Colorado  in  the  militia  seem  to 
have  played  small  part  in  this  reign  of  terror.  The 
brutalities  complained  of  were  inflicted  almost  en- 
tirely by  the  mine  guards  and  hired  thugs  rushed 
into  the  militia  by  the  coal  companies,  many  of  them 
still  remaining  on  the  company  pay-rolls. 

The  attitude  of  these  creatures  was  not  the 
least  repulsive  features  of  our  investigation.  Many 
of  those  with  whom  we  talked  actually  viewed  the 
Ludlow  massacre  as  "fun." 

In  view  of  all  these  things,  we  beg  to  make  the 
following  recommendations : 

1.  That  you  order  an  instant  investigation  of 
all  happenings  connected  with  the  presence  of  the 
militia  in  the  strike  district,  to  the  end  that  a  dis- 
tinction may  be  established  between  rightful  exer- 
cises of  the  military  power  and  the  crimes  of  indi- 
viduals, turning  latter  cases  over  to  the  civil  au- 
thorities for  prompt  prosecution.    The  eyes  of  the 
world  are  upon  us,  and  the  honor  of  Colorado  de- 
mands that  the  state  refuse  to  bear  the  odium  of 
atrocities  committed  by  imported  Hessians. 

2.  That  the  extra  session  make  no  provision 
for  the  payment  of  the  indebtedness  incurred  by  the 
militia  until  the  military  rolls  have  been  purged  of 
the  Eockefeller   gunmen  and  thugs,   and   until  an 
auditing  committee  has  made  a  report  that  will  per- 
mit the  people  to  decide  between  just  obligations 
and  fraudulent  claims.    It  is  the  right  of  Colorado 
to  have  a  distinction  established  between  the  bona 
fide,  law-loving  members  of  our  national  guard  and 
the  desperadoes  sneaked  into  it  by  the  companies. 

3.  That  you  withdraw  your  request  for  a  state 
constabulary,  as  such  an  organization  could  not  help 
becoming  a  powerful  adjunct  to  the  labor-crushing 
despotism  of  the  coal  companies. 

4.  That  you  exercise  your  police  power  and 
take  over  the  mines  for  operation  by  the  state,  pend- 
ing an  agreement  between  the  strikers  and  the  oper- 


36  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

ators.  Had  this  been  done  in  the  first  place,  Colo- 
rado would  not  now  be  burdened  with  debt  and  un- 
merited shame. 

5.  That  you  lend  your  aid  to  the  movement 
in  favor  of  a  constitutional  amendment  allowing  the 
state  to  develop  its  own  natural  resources,  so  that 
we  may  be  freed  from  the  menace  of  such  absentee 
landlords  as  Eockefeller,  whose  only  interest  in  our 
affairs  is  the  money  that  his  overseers  may  mint 
from  the  sweat  of  wage-slaves. 

It  is  our  opinion,  sir,  that  the  time  has  come 
for  some  enunciation  of  the  great  truth  that  the 
rights  of  society  are  paramount,  and  that  no  indi- 
vidual, group,  corporation  or  class  shall  be  per- 
mitted to  advance  its  own  interests  at  the  expense 
of  the  general  welfare.  Strikes  and  lockouts  are 
alike  antagonistic  to  public  peace  and  prosperity. 

The  public  must  stretch  out  its  hand,  still  all 
strife  and  adjust  disputes  in  the  spirit  of  equal  jus- 
tice that  takes  no  account  of  race,  circumstances  or 
creed.  The  people — third  party  to  every  industrial 
dispute — must  assert  their  incontrovertible  claim 
to  act  as  arbiter. 

President  Wilson  expects  you  "to  draw  the  at- 
tention of  the  Legislature  to  the  imperative  neces- 
sity of  immediate  consideration  of  the  whole  situa- 
tion and  secure  as  prompt  action  as  is  possible  in 
the  premises. " 

What  will  you  do? 

Respectfully  submitted, 
ALMA  V.  LAFFERTY, 
EVANGELINE  HEAETZ, 

Committee. 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  37 

Affidavits  of  Survivors  of  the  Massacre  Tell  the 
Terrible  Story 

State  of  Colorado,        I  gs  AFFIDAVIT 

County  of  Las  Ammas     j 

Tom  Eomero,  being  first  duly  sworn,  upon  oath 
doth  depose  and  say: 

That  his  name  is  Tom  Eomero ;  that  on  Monday, 
April  20th,  about  9  a.  m.,  he  was  playing  ball  back 
of  the  Snodgrass  store  at  Ludlow  with  one  Frank 
Didano;  that  he  heard  some  explosions  and  saw 
some  men  and  women  running  from  the  depot  at 
Ludlow  toward  the  tent  colony;  that  he  saw  some 
soldiers  and  guards  near  the  steel  bridge  and  some 
more  over  near  the  soldiers'  camp,  working  with  a 
machine  gun ;  that  he  and  Frank  Didanp  ran  for  the 
tent  colony;  that  right  away  machine  guns  opened 
fire  on  the  tent  colony,  and  the  people  hid  in  the  cel- 
lars of  the  tents  to  keep  from  getting  killed  and 
some  ran  for  the  arroyo;  that  affiant  ran  for  the 
arroyo  and  took  with  him  some  women  and  children 
whom  he  persuaded  to  run  the  risk  of  the  machine 
guns ;  that  some  people  got  killed  running  from  the 
tents  to  the  arroyo  and  other  places ;  that  the  firing 
got  so  hot  that  no  one  dared  to  try  to  get  back  to 
the  tents;  several  men  had  tried  it  and  got  killed; 
they  got  more  machine  guns  and  put  them  on  a  hill 
so  they  could  shoot  down  in  the  arroyo,  and  affiant 
then  ran  away  and  came  to  Trinidad;  that  affiant 
had  no  gun;  that  there  were  not  over  fifty  guns  in 
the  tent  colony  that  affiant  knows  of,  including  shot- 
guns ;  that  no  shooting  was  done  by  anyone  from  the 
tent  colony ;  that  they  tried  to  kill  every  living  thing 
with  their  machine  guns. 

(Signed)  TOM  EOMERO. 

Subscribed  in  my  presence  and  sworn  to  before 
me  this  23rd  day  of  April,  A.  D.  1914 

My  commission  expires  on  the  18th  day  of  July, 
A.  D.  1915. 

(Seal)  ANGUS  E.  McGLASHAN, 

Notary  Public. 


THE  "BLACK  HOLE"  OF  LUDLOW 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  39 

State  of  Colorado,         )  AFFIDAVIT 

County  of  Las  Animas     f  SS' 

John  Boga,  of  lawful  age,  being  first  duly  sworn, 
upon  oath  doth  depose  and  say: 

That  his  name  is  John  Boga ;  that  he  is  a  strik- 
ing miner;  that  on  Monday,  April  20th,  he  was  in 
the  tent  colony ;  that  the  tent  colony  had  many  Amer- 
ican flags  on  flagstaffs  over  the  tents,  as  well  as 
other  flags ;  that  about  9  o  'clock  he  heard  an  explo- 
sion that  sounded  like  a  cannon  or  dynamite  over 
near  the  soldiers'  tent,  and  affiant  ran  out  of  his 
tent  and  immediately  the  soldiers  and  guards  started 
shooting  into  the  tent  colony;  'that  affiant  had  no 
gun^  and  ran  for  his  life  into  the  arroyo  and  stayed 
there  until  about  2  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  when 
he  saw  an  automobile  on  the  road  being  shot  at  by 
a  machine  gun,  and  affiant  ran  out  and  found  it  was 
John  Lawson  trying  to  get  to  the  tent  colony,  and 
rode  back  with  him  to  Hoehne  and  then  came  to 
Trinidad;  that  there  was  no  shooting  done  by  any- 
one from  the  tent  colony  ground;  the  few  men  who 
had  guns  went  away  to  other  places,  and  there  was 
no  excuse  to  shoot  into  the  tents. 

.    (Signed)  JOHN  BOGA. 

Subscribed  in  my  presence  and  sworn  to  before 
me  this  23rd  day  of  April,  A.  D.  1914. 

My  commission  expires  on  the  18th  day  of  July, 
A.  D.  1915. 

(Seal)  ANGUS  E.  McGLASHAN, 

Notary  Public. 

State  of  Colorado,         t  gg  AFFIDAVIT 

County  or  Las  Animas     [ 

John  Oleko,  of  lawful  age,  being  first  duly 
sworn,  upon  oath  doth  depose  and  say: 

That  his  name  is  John  Oleko ;  that  he  is  a  resi- 
dent of  the  Ludlow  tent  colony ;  that  he  is  of  Slavish 
nationality;  that  he  went  to  the  store  at  Ludlow, 


40  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

which  is  about  200  yards  from  the  tent  colony,  on 
Monday  morning,  April  20,  A.  D.  1914,  to  buy  some 
things  from  the  store ;  that  about  9  o  'clock  he  came 
back  to  his  tent,  which  is  No.  120,  and  in  a  moment 
or  two  he  heard  a  big  shot  over  near  the  soldiers' 
camp;  he  came  out  of  his  tent  and  heard  another 
big  shot;  pretty  soon  shooting  from  soldiers'  camp 
and  from  all  over  that  way  started  by  men  shooting 
toward  the  tent  colony;  affiant  got  scared  and  tried 
to  get  some  Slavish  women  and  children  to  leave  the 
tents  and  hide  in  the  arroyo  or  run  away;  that  affi- 
ant had  no  gun  and  there  were  very  few  guns  in  the 
tents;  that  he  did  succeed  in  getting  three  women 
and  several  children  down  in  the  creek,  but  was  all 
the  time  shot  at  by  rifles  and  machine  guns;  that 
.the  soldiers  and  guards  shoot  thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  shots  through  the  tents ;  that  men  who  try 
to  go  get  women  out  of  tent  get  killed;  that  they 
holler  for  women  to  come  down  in  the  creek,  but 
they  were  afraid,  and  affiant  thinks  that  they  would 
all  have  been  killed  had  they  tried  to  cross  the  open 
space  from  the  tents  to  the  arroyo ;  if  the  tents  had 
not  been  burned,  the  women  and  children  who  had 
hid  in  the  holes  under  the  tents  might  have  been  all 
right,  unless  the  explosive  bullets  hit  near  them; 
affiant  could  not  do  anything,  so  he  ran  away  to  a 
ranch  and  came  to  Trinidad,  where  he  has  been 
since. 

(Signed)  JOHN  OLEKO. 

Subscribed  in  my  presence  and  sworn  to  before 
me  this  23rd  day  of  April,  A.  D.  1914. 

My  commission  expires  on  the  18th  day  of  July, 
A.  D.  1915. 

(Seal)  ANGUS  E.  McGLASHAN, 

Notary  Public. 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  41 

Military  Report 

A  military  committee  composed  of  Judge  Advo- 
cate Boughton  of  the  notorious  military  court,  Cap- 
tain W.  C.  Danks  and  Captain  Philip  Van  Cise  did 
not  deny  in  its  report  that  the  tent  colony  had  been 
fired  and  looted  by  the  thugs  after  the  massacre  of 
the  innocents.  The  report  says: 

"  During  the  rescuing,  and  afterwards,  the 
tent  colony  was  invaded  by  the  soldiers  and 
mine  guards  for  quite  a  different  purpose.  By 
this  time  the  uniformed  guardsmen  had  been 
joined  by  large  numbers  of  men  in  civilian  at- 
tire, part  of  whom  were  from  Troop  "A"  and 
part  of  them  mine  guards,  all  unknown  to  the 
uniformed  soldiers  and  their  officers  and  all  un- 
used and  unamenable  to  discipline. 

"By  this  time,  the  time  of  the  burning  of 
the  tents,  the  nondescript  number  of  men  had 
passed  out  of  their  officers'  control,  had  ceased 
to  be  an  army  and  had  become  a  mob.  Doubt- 
less all  were  seeing  red  on  both  sides  of  the  con- 
flict. 

"We  find  that  the  tents  were  not  all  of  them 
destroyed  by  accidental  fire.  Men  and  soldiers 
swarmed  into  the  colony  and  deliberately  as- 
sisted the  conflagration  of  spreading  the  fire  from 
tent  to  tent. 

"Beyond  a  doubt,  it  was  seen  to  intention- 
ally that  the  fire  should  destroy  the  whole  of  the 
colony.  This,  too,  was  accompanied  by  the  usual 
loot. 

"Men  and  soldiers  seized  and  took  from  the 
tents  whatever  appealed  to  their  fancy  of  the 
moment.  In  this  way,  clothes,  bedding,  articles 
of  jewelry,  bicycles,  tools  and  utensils  were  taken 
from  the  tents  and  conveyed  away. 

"So  deliberate  was  this  burning  and  looting 
that  we  find  that  cans  of  oil  found  in  the  tents 
were  poured  upon  them  and  the  tents  lit  with 
matches." 


LOUIS  TIKAS 

Murdered  Hero 


This  photograph  of  Louis,  the  Greek,  was  taken  at 
the  well  of  the  Ludlow  tent  colony  several  months  be- 
fore the  disaster.  It  illustrates  the  extremes  to  which  the 
state  militia  went  to  harass  the  strikers — one  of  Linder- 
felt's  murderers  fell  from  his  horse  when  the  animal 
stumbled  over  a  piece  of  wire.  Linderfelt  ordered  all  the 
wire  fence  around  the  tent  colony  cut  down.  It  was 
thrown  into  the  only  well  from  which  the  strikers  could 
get  water.  Louis  is  standing  beside  the  wire  and  a  pole 
after  they  were  taken  from  the  well. 


THE    L  u  D  L  o  w    MASSACRE  43 

This  committee  did  not  hesitate  to  fix  the  blame 
and  to  say  that  the  battle  was  premeditated  and  de- 
liberately planned. 

The  report  says : 

"We  find  that  the  remote  cause  of  this,  as 
of  all  other  battles,  lies  with  the  coal  operators 
who  established  in  an  American  industrial  com- 
munity a  numerous  class  of  ignorant,  lawless  and 
savage  South  European  peasants.  The  present 
underlying  cause  was  the  presence  near  Ludlow, 
in  daily  contact  one  with  another,  of  three  dis- 
cordant elements — strikers,  soldiers  and  mine 
guards,  all  armed  and  fostering  an  increasing 
deadly  hatred  which  sooner  or  later  was  bound 
to  find  some  such  expression." 

But  the  scenes  at  Ludlow  were  none  the  less 
pathetic  than  those  in  Trinidad,  where  several  hun- 
dred women  and  children  found  refuge.  Society 
women,  who  had  been  openly  opposed  to  the  miners, 
offered  their  homes  to  the  survivors  of  the  horrible 
massacre  with  the  same  spirit  as  the  working  people 
offered  to  share  their  two  and  three  rooms. 

In  the  halls  of  the  Trindad  Trades  and  Labor 
Assembly  most  of  the  refugees  were  housed.  No 
pen  could  picture  the  scenes  of  suffering  or  anguish 
portrayed  there. 

Whole  Families  Wiped  Out. 

Over  in  one  corner  was  Mrs.  Mary  Petrucci, 
driven  temporarily  insane  over  the  loss  of  her  three 
little  children. 

Not  far  away  sat  Piedro  Valdez,  his  short, 
stocky  frame  shaking  in  agonized  grief  over  the 
terrible  extermination  of  his  entire  family. 

Piedro  was  in  El  Paso  when  he  heard  that  the 
battle  had  started.  He  thought  of  his  brother  and 
his  wife  and  four  children  who  were  in  the  tent 
colony,  and  left  at  once  for  Trinidad.  When  he 
reached  there,  Tuesday,  he  found  his  brother  dead 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  45 

from  an  explosive  bullet  and  his  wife  and  four  chil- 
dren burned  and  emaciated  so  terribly  that  they 
could  scarcely  be  recognized. 

From  every  corner  of  the  immense  hall  came 
wails  and  sobs  for  loved  ones  known  to  be  dead 
or  missing. 

It  was  not  until  Wednesday,  forty-eight  hours 
after  the  massacre  of  the  innocents  at  Ludlow,  that 
the  militia  allowed  Eed  Cross  nurses  and  physicians 
to  go  to  the  scene  of  the  disaster.  Then  they  were 
not  allowed  to  search  the  ruins. 

In  one  cave  alone,  the  ' '  Black  Hole  of  Ludlow, ' ' 
were  found  the  emaciated  bodies  of  eleven  little 
children,  none  of  whom  were  over  seven  years  of 
age,  and  two  of  their  mothers. 

Their  faces,  drawn  taut  with  pain,  showed  the 
terrible  torture  they  had  suffered  before  death,  and 
their  burned  bodies  put  the  lie  to  the  militia's  story 
that  they  had  been  suffocated. 

Flames  Cheat  Bullets. 

One  of  these  little  tots  who  had  been  hiding 
in  a  tent  tried  to  escape  when  the  gunmen  militia 
set  fire  to  the  tent  colony  Monday  night.  She  was 
driven  back  into  the  flaming  furnace  by  the  assas- 
sins' bullets  and  burned  to  death. 

It  is  believed  that  many  of  the  children  met 
their  deaths  in  the  same  manner.  It  would  have 
been  impossible  for  the  thirteen  women  and  children 
found  in  the  " Black  Hole"  to  have  been  burned 
there. 

Some  of  those  found  dead  there  were  not 
burned.  These  were  the  children  who  were  taken 
to  this  place  of  safety  by  Louis  Tikas  and  others 
before  the  colony  was  destroyed. 

The  others  were  probably  picked  up  in  the 
various  tents  and  thrown  into  the  hole  to  create 
the  impression  that  no  women  and  children  were 
murdered  and  cremated  by  the  militiamen,  but  that 


46  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACKE 

all  of  those  found  were  suffocated  in  caves  dug  for 
their  safety  by  their  fathers  and  husbands. 

President  John  McLennan  of  District  15,  one 
of  the  active  leaders  of  the  strike,  went  with  the 
Eed  Cross  party  to  Ludlow.  He  had  been  given 
permission  to  go  there,  but  as  soon  as  he  arrived 
he  was  placed  under  arrest.  He  was  released,  but 
had  only  been  at  liberty  a  few  minutes  when  he 
was  again  taken  into  custody  and  held  until  the 
party  was  ready  to  leave. 

The  fact  that  the  Eed  Cross  party  and  under- 
takers were  not  allowed  to  search  the  ruins,  and 
that  President  McLennan  was  not  even  permitted 
to  go  over  the  ground  seems  to  further  prove  the 
claim  that  only  a  small  percentage  of  the  murdered 
were  found  and  that  the  gunmen  militia  had  even 
more  than  that  to  hide  from  strike  officials  and  the 
public. 

The  bodies  of  the  dead  were  taken  to  the  Hall- 
McMahon  undertaking  parlors  in  Trinidad. 

And  for  the  next  forty-eight  hours  weeping  and 
wailing  men  and  women  crowded  the  place,  hoping 
against  hope  that  they  would  find  none  of  their  loved 
ones  there,  and  yet  seeming  to  wish  that  they  would 
rather  have  them  dead  than  among  the  missing  who 
might  never  return  from  the  scene  of  the  slaughter. 

Death  Beats  Life. 

Death,  represented  by  the  Hamrock-Linderfelt 
butchers,  beat  Life  in  the  struggle,  and  young 
strikers  were  the  penalty.  They  were  just  some  of 
the  many  cases  where  the  innocent  had  to  suffer. 

One  particular  instance  of  the  results  of  this 
butchery  was  had  in  the  undertaking  parlor  that 
night. 

The  young  striker  was  unarmed. 

Its  mother  lay  on  a  cold,  hard  slab  at  the 
morgue,  a  victim  of  the  Hamrock-Linderfelt  mur- 
derers. She  was  found  in  the  death  hole  at  Ludlow 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACBE  47 

when  the  Bed  Cross  Society  visited  the  devastated 
city. 

If  the  murderous  thugs  in  Colorado's  national 
guard  uniform  had  remained  away  from  Ludlow, 
had  not  felt  it  necessary  to  massacre  the  innocents 
to  earn  their  $3  additional  pay  from  the  coal  oper- 
ators, there  would  have  been  at  least  one  little 
striker  two  days  old.  But  the  Hamrock-Linderfelt 
assassins'  lust  for  blood  could  not  be  denied. 

Thursday  morning  when  the  woman  was  buried 
a  little  heap  lay  in  her  arms  against  a  breast  that 
never  had  or  never  would  nurse  it. 

Trinidad  turned  out  en  masse  to  do  honor  to 
the  massacred  dead  when  they  were  buried. 

The  wails  and  chants  of  the  women  who  were 
mourning  their  dead  caused  tears  of  sympathy  to 
flow  from  eyes  that  had  formerly  looked  askance 
at  these  same  people. 

As  they  passed  the  coffins  of  these  poor  dead 
little  children,  charred  and  reddened  by  the  fire, 
their  features  distorted  by  the  agony  in  which  they, 
died,  the  heart-cries  of  the  mourners  swelled  into 
a  monster  voice  of  protest  against  the  terrible  out- 
rage. 

Many  of  the  women  and  children  were  in  such 
a  horribly  mutilated  condition  that  the  caskets  were 
closed. 

There  were  none  who  watched  this  funeral  pro- 
cession who  did  not  think  of  the  words  of  the  Eisen 
God  as  He  said:  "For  it  is  written  vengeance  is 
"mine,  I  will  repay  saith  the  Lord." 

Louis  the  Greek  was  buried  in  the  Knights  of 
Pythias  cemetery  on  Monday,  one  week  after  he 
had  made  himself  a  martyr  to  the  cause  of  his  union 
and  his  people,  whom  he  rescued  by  the  score. 

To  show  the  fellowship  of  the  dead  man  for  his 
comrades  at  Ludlow,  the  body  of  Tikas,  in  a  flower- 
covered  casket,  had  headed  the  funeral  procession 
of  those  who  had  been  buried  the  Thursday  before. 


50  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

Then  the  body  was  returned  to  the  undertaking  par- 
lors to  await  the  arrival  of  a  priest  of  the  Greek 
Catholic  Church. 

All  day  Sunday  hundreds  of  strikers,  hats  in 
hand,  had  marched  past  the  bier  of  Tikas.  They 
solemnly  touched  the  cold  brow,  crossed  themselves, 
muttered  something  and  then  quickened  their  steps 
for  the  strikers'  camp  at  San  Eafael  Heights. 

Funeral  of  Louis  Tikas. 

Frances  Wayne  described  Louis'  funeral  as 
follows : 

"The  body  of  Tikas  lay  before  an  altar  on 
which  were  branched  candles,  holding  high,  burning 
tapers.  The  priest,  assisted  by  Pietro  Catsulis, 
now  the  leader  of  the  Greek  colony,  intoned  the 
mass,  the  response  being  made  by  Catsulis. 

"Three  times  the  priest  kissed  the  cheeks  of 
the  dead  leader.  Three  times  he  anointed  the  brow 
with  wine.  Three  times  he  sprinkled  dust  on  the 
face  of  the  dead,  while  a  Greek  in  overalls  and  cor- 
duroy coat  swung  the  silver  censer  and  wailed  dole- 
fully. 

."  *  Jesus  give  a  place  in  Heaven  to  Louis,' 
chanted  the  priest  in  the  Greek  tongue. 

"  l  Jesus  give  a  place  in  heaven  to  Louis.  Bring 
life  from  the  grave,'  solemnly  repeated  the  dark- 
faced  fighting  men  who  crowded  the  undertaker's 
chapel. 

"  'Jesus,  if  Louis  has  any  enemies,  may  they 
forget  their  hostility,'  chanted  Catsulis. 

"The  tapers  burned  low.  The  place  was  dim 
with  incense.  But  the  priest  chanted  on,  his  iron- 
gray  hair  and  flowing  beard  in  somber  contrast  with 
his  gold  and  silver  woven  robes. 

"This  was  the  funeral  of  the  man  beliked  by 
all  he  led  and  served.  But  a  handful  of  women 
were  present,  and  no  arms  were  carried  to  remind 
those  who  watched  that  war  was  on. 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  51 

"Orderly,  reverent,  deeply  religious,  was  the 
service.  When  the  body  was  carried  from  the 
chapel,  488  Greeks  followed  the  line  before  the 
hearse.  The  American  colors,  draped  in  crepe,  were 
lifted,  and  in  utter  silence  the  cortege  moved  down 
Main  Street  to  Commercial,  past  the  headquarters 
of  the  United  Mine  Workers  and  on  over  the  hill  to 
the  Knights  of  Pythias  cemetery. 

"Before  the  funeral  four  Greeks  carrying  their 
muskets  entered  the  chapel.  They  lifted  their  hats, 
muttered  an  oath  to  l avenge  Louis'  death, '  pounded 
four  times  on  the  floor  with  their  muskets,  turned 
and  left  the  room." 

The  "Ludlow  Massacre"  started  a  two  weeks' 
war  between  strikers  and  gunmen  that  has  probably 
never  been  equalled  for  its  viciousness  in  any  indus- 
trial conflict. 

Attempt  Wholesale  Slaughter. 

Driven  frantic  and  more  bloodthirsty  by  the 
cries  of  protest  that  came  from  all  parts  of  the  world 
against  their  infamous  slaughter  of  the  women  and 
children  at  Ludlow,  the  gunmen  militia  started  what 
they  hoped  would  be  the  complete  extermination  of 
the  strikers  and  their  families. 

President  McLennan  was  arrested  Thursday  by 
the  militia  and  held  all  night.  Every  few  minutes 
his  life  was  threatened,  but  he  was  finally  released. 

While  Eed  Cross  nurses  waited  in  his  office  to 
get  permits  to  aid  the  injured  at'  Ludlow,  Acting 
Governor  Fitzgarrald  held  an  hour's  conference  with 
the  coal  operators  Tuesday  afternoon.  The  result 
of  that  conference  was  an  order  returning  the  militia 
to  the  field  the  following  day  to  reinforce  the  mur- 
derers of  Saloonkeeper  Hamrock  and  Butcher  Lin- 
derfelt. 

The  Trinidad  Free  Press  fixed  the  blame  for 
sending  out  the  militia  as  follows : 

"Orders  to  acting  Governor  Fitzgarrald  to  send 


52  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

gunmen  reinforcements  to  the  strike  zone  to  back 
up  the  gunmen  who  massacred  the  women  and  chil- 
dren at  Ludlow  Monday  were  carried  direct  from 
the  office  of  John  C.  Osgood,  president  of  the  Victor- 
American  Fuel  Co.,  to  the  state  capitol  Wednesday 
morning  by  President  Stearns  of  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce  and  Fred  P.  Johnson,  political  agent  of 
the  Chicago  packing  trust. 

"Assurances  of  ample  funds  for  the  campaign 
were  also  taken  to  Fitzgarrald  by  those  active  agents 
of  Rockefellers  and  other  special  privilege  interests. 

"And  Fitzgarrald  lost  no  time  in  conveying  the 
coal  operators'  orders  to  Chase. 

"Chase  was  delighted. 

"He  immediately  began  notifying  Denver  mili- 
tiamen, whose  mothers  and  wives  were  raging 
against  the  Ludlow  massacre,  to  hold  themselves  in 
readiness  to  entrain  for  the  strike  zone. 

"Fitzgarrald,  alarmed  at  the  protest  of  Demo- 
cratic leaders  over  his  refusal  to  go  in  person  to 
Ludlow  and  stop  the  fighting,  feared  that  the  fact 
he  was  carrying  out  the  Ammons  policy  of  doing  the 
coal  barons'  bidding,  gave  out  an  interview  Thurs- 
day night  saying  he  had  refused  the  operators'  offer 
of  money  to  finance  the  state  troops. 

"Stearns  was  ordered  to  come  to  Osgood 's  office 
in  the  E.  &  C.  building.  A  few  minutes  later,  John- 
son arrived.  Other  visitors  were  swept  aside.  A 
hurried  conference  followed. 

1  i  Then  the  orders  were  taken  to  Fitzgarrald.  He 
immediately  told  Chase  to  get  in  touch  with  his  men. 
Telegrams  were  sent  to  Governor  Ammons,  who  was 
en  route  home  from  Washington,  where  he  had  been 
lobbying  for  land  grabbers,  who  want  further  li- 
cense to  loot  public  lands  in  Colorado. 

"Thus  was  Fitzgarrald  lending  his  ear  to  the 
coal  barons  and  obeying  their  orders  Wednesday, 
while  the  Ludlow  murderers  were  driving  away  un- 
dertakers sent  from  Trinidad  to  Ludlow  to  recover 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  53 

the  burned  and  mangled  forms  of  those  little  children 
and  brave  women  who  died  by  fire  and  bullet. 

Horror  Shocks  Colorado. 

Colorado  stood  aghast  at  the  horrors  of  the 
shambles  of  Ludlow. 

Persons  who  had  been  prostituted  to  favor  the 
militia  before  this  catastrophe  bowed  their  heads 
and  apologized  that  they  were  residents  of  a  state 
where  its  alleged  citizen  soldiery  should  be  used  to 
murder  the  working  class  and  its  women  and  babes. 

Men  and  women  stood  on  the  streets  talking  in 
a  whisper  of  this  horror. 

Organizations  passed  resolutions,  some  offering 
armed  assistance  to  the  strikers  and  asking  to  be 
called. 

Many  bodies  turned  over  their  entire  treasuries 
to  aid  the  suffering  men  and  women  and  children. 

More  than  1,000  women — many  carrying  babes 
in  their  arms — stormed  the  capitol  Saturday  at  the 
call  of  the  Women 's  Peace  organization  and  ordered 
Governor  Ammons  to  ask  President  Wilson  to  send 
federal  troops  to  end  the  civil  war  which  flamed  red 
in  the  strike  zone  following  the  ' '  Slaughter  of  Inno- 
cents "  at  Ludlow  Monday  by  Eockefeller  gunmen 
wearing  militia  uniforms. 

They  sang  "  America "  and  other  patriotic  songs 
while  Ammons  waited  for  detectives  to  escort  him 
into  the  presence  of  outraged  maidens,  wives  and 
mothers,  who  were  so  aroused  over  the  massacre 
of  defenseless  women  and  innocent  children  at  Lud- 
low. 

Ammons  tried  to  refuse  their  plea  for  an  imme- 
diate request  for  federal  troops. 

"Punish  those  guilty  of  the  Ludlow  massacre/' 
was  the  battle  cry  as  the  women  gathered. 

"Wait  until  I  investigate  and  get  the  facts," 
he  pleaded.  '  *  It  would  be  an  AFFEONT  TO  PEES- 


President  John  McLennan  of  District  15,  U.  M.  W.  A.,  and  Major  Pat  Ham- 
rock,  saloon-keeper  and  officer  in  charge  of  Colorado's  uniformed  mur- 
derers who  perpetrated  the  Ludlow  Massacre. 

Picture  taken  when  McLennan  was  a  military  prisoner. 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACKE  55 

IDENT  WILSON  TO  ASK  FOE  FEDERAL 
TEOOPS  NOW." 

"May  I  respectfully  ask  in  what  way  it  would 
be  an  affront  to  ask  the  president  for  help  when  he 
has  said  he  was  willing  to  help  if  you  will  ask  for 
troops?"  said  Mrs.  Eobert  W.  Steele,  widow  of  Chief 
Justice  E.  W.  Steele,  who  led  the  delegation  of  men, 
women  and  children. 

Waiting  hundreds  cheered  when  the  brave  little 
widow  of  the  clear  visioned  late  supreme  court  jus- 
tice challenged  the  governor. 

Ammons  refused  to  answer  this  question.  He 
talked  all  around  the  point,  but  Colorado  mothers 
do  not  yet  understand  how  it  is  an  affront  to  demand 
the  stopping  of  civil  war  on  women  and  children. 

A  thunderous  cry  for  immediate  action  by  the 
governor  in  telegraphing  to  Washington  for  troops 
forced  him  to  promise  the  women  that  he  would  send 
a  message  at  once  to  find  whether  or  not  he  could 
have  federal  troops  if  he  asked  for  them. 

He  was  escorted  to  his  office  by  the  same  com- 
mittee of  women  which  demanded  his  presence  in 
the  house. 

A  telegram  from  Eepresentative  Taylor  of  Colo- 
rado had  announced  that  federal  troops  could  not  be 
sent  even  if  asked  for  since  there  was  no  precedent 
for  such  action  by  federal  authorities. 

Wilson  was  ready  to  send  troops  if  Governor 
Ammons  would  ask  for  them. 

These  conflicting  statements  caused  the  message 
of  inquiry  to  be  sent. 

Senator  Helen  Eing  Eobinson,  Mrs.  S.  K.  Wall- 
ing, Mrs.  Evangeline  Heartz,  Mrs.  J.  J.  Eyan  and 
Mrs.  J.  C.  Herrlingger,  carrying  her  eight-months- 
old  baby,  camped  in  Governor  Ammons '  office  for  an 
hour  before  he  would  go  to  the  house  chamber  to 
get  his  answer  from  Washington. 

Governor  Ammons  publicly  promised  the  women 


56  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

that  he  would  find  the  guilty  and  PUNISH  them  for 
the  Ludlow  massacre. 

He  said  there  had  been  constant  firing  in  the 
southern  coal  fields  since  6  a.  m.  and  he  had  been 
trying  to  stop  the  battles  between  strikers  and  state 
militia. 

This  is  the  telegram  Ammons  sent: 

"To  the  President, 
"White  House, 

"Washington,  D.  C. 

' '  Conflicting  reports  as  to  action  at  cabinet  meet- 
ing yesterday  morning  have  been  received  here.  I 
would  be  greatly  obliged  to  know  if  we  cannot  con- 
trol the  situation  in  the  southern  coal  fields,  can  we 
have  federal  troops  I 

"ELIAS  AMMONS." 

After  reading  this  message,  to  which  no  answer 
had  yet  been  received,  the  assembly  was  dismissed, 
with  a  large  delegation  remaining  to  get  the  answer 
when  it  is  received. 

The  women  were  waiting  in  the  house  chamber 
for  the  president's  answer  to  Ammons'  wire  for 
federal  troops.  The  women  did  not  leave  for  lunch. 
When  leaders  suggested  that  a  large  committee  be 
named  to  relieve  the  meeting  from  the  duty  of  wait- 
ing, cries  of  "No,  no,"  came  from  the  audience. 

Company  Doctors  Kill  Babes. 

During  the  speechmaking  while  the  women 
waited  for  Ammons  to  put  in  an  appearance,"  an- 
other kind  of  ' '  slaughter  of  innocents ' '  was  described 
by  Mrs.  Mary  L.  Geffs,  5025  Tennyson  street,  who 
went  personally  into  the  southern  coal  fields  to  in- 
vestigate conditions. 

"And  what  of  the  coal  company  doctors,"  she 
cried  in  a  ringing  voice. 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACBE  57 

"Let  me  tell  you  how  babes  are  killed  by  willful 
neglect  of  camp  doctors  who  pretended  to  care  for 
the  women  at  confinement. 

"I  know  personally  of  many  babies  born  to 
miners'  wives  who  died  through  the  carelessness  of 
a  corporation-hired  doctor  to  whom  every  mother 
paid  tribute  of  $1  a  month.  Oh,  sisters,  let  me  tell 
you  a  coal  miner's  wife  has  just  as  much  love  for 
her  child  as  you  have  for  yours. 

' '  I  believe  they  have  even  more  devotion  to  their 
babes  than  the  rich,  whom  I  have  heard  divide  their 
affection  between  their  children  and  their  poodle 
dogs.  Do  you  realize  that  this  sort  of  child  murder 
has  been  going  on  for  twenty-five  years  in  our  coal 
camps  ? 

"When  the  camp  doctor  was  refused  by  some 
wives  and  another  physician  brought  in  to  care  for 
them,  he  WAS  CHASED  OUT  OF  THE  CAMP  by 
coal  company  guards. 

"Women,  hear  me  when  I  tell  you  these  are 
facts  gathered  by  a  woman  who  does  not  live  in 
southern  Colorado,  who  is  not  a  miner's  wife  and 
who  went  there  unbiased  to  learn  the  truth." 

These  women  camped  in  the  state  house  until 
Ammons  finally  granted  their  demand  and  asked 
President  Wilson  to  send  federal  troops  to  Colorado. 

The  people  of  Colorado  found  one  outlet  for 
their  bitter  feeling  of  protest  against  the  slaughter 
of  the  innocents  in  a  monster  mass  meeting  held  on 
the  state  house  grounds  in  Denver  Sunday  afternoon, 
April  26. 

Prominent  citizens  of  Denver  got  together  and 
issued  the  following  call  for  the  meeting: 


58  THE    LTJDLOW    MASSACRE 

Ludlow — A  Call  to  Action 

A  mass  meeting  will  be  held  Sunday  afternoon 
on  the  State  House  grounds  at  3  o'clock  to  take  ac- 
tion upon  the  Ludlow  massacre.  All  those  to  whom 
patriotism  means  more  than  profits,  and  in  whom 
humanity  still  burns,  are  urged  to  attend  and  breathe 
their  passion  into  the  dead  body  of  murdered  jus- 
tice. Betrayed  by  those  elected  to  protect,  and 
butchered  by  brutal  mercenaries,  the  only  hope  of 
the  toiling  class  now  lies  in  common  counsel  and 
concerted  action.  Desperate  is  the  need.  The  money 
masters,  realizing  that  we  will  not  surrender  as  long 
as  life  lasts,  are  resolved  upon  a  campaign  of  utter 
annihilation.  Of  all  those  who  labor,  whether  in 
mine,  mill,  shop  or  store,  not  one  is  safe  from  capi- 
talism 's  savage  menace.  It  is  the  turn  of  the  miners 
today.  Oh,  brothers  in  other  callings,  it  may  be 
yours  tomorrow.  It  is  not  a  handful  of  coal  diggers 
that  have  been  marked  down  for  slaughter ;  it  is  the 
right  of  the  worker  to  better  his  condition  that  they 
mean  to  destroy.  If  Ludlow  shall  go  unanswered 
it  will  be  the  death  knell  of  human  hope  and  human 
aspiration.  Let  the  blood  of  those  martyred  men, 
women  and  babes  wash  away  all  lines  of  difference 
and  division,  permitting  brotherhood  to  stand  forth 
free  again  and  whole.  Come. 

WORKERS'  DEFENSE  LEAGUE. 

Ten  thousand  men  and  women  stood  in  a  driv- 
ing rain  for  two  hours  that  Sunday  afternoon  and 
listened  to  stirring  denunciations  of  the  gunmen- 
militiamen  by  Mother  Jones,  E.  L.  Doyle,  secretary- 
treasurer  of  District  15  of  the  United  Mine  Workers, 
and  others. 

Resolutions  of  Meeting. 

There  in  front  of  the  state  capitol,  where  Colo- 
rado officials  had  betrayed  its  citizens,  the  following 
resolutions  were  passed: 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  59 

To  All  the  People: 

This  meeting  gathered  under  the  open  skies, 
cries  to  the  world  the  record  of  industrial  wrongs 
that  found  ghastly  culmination  in  the  wanton  mas- 
sacre of  men,  women  and  children  under  the  burning 
tents  at  Ludlow. 

There  are  laws  upon  the  statute  books  of  Colo- 
rado that  guarantee  to  miners  the  eight-hour  day, 
cash  payment  for  work,  semi-monthly  pay-days,  the 
right  to  unionization,  check  weighmen  and  the  pro- 
tection of  safety  devices. 

Absentee  landlords  operating  on  land  stolen 
from  the  school  children  of  Colorado,  their  human- 
ity stifled  by  avarice,  have  defied  every  one  of  these 
laws  continuously  and  openly.  More  than  2,000  min- 
ers have  died  like  rats  in  traps  these  last  twenty 
years  because  dividends  could  not  be  lessened  by  the 
expense  of  improvements,  and  their  families  denied 
the  right  to  collect  damages  have  been  doomed  to 
squalor  and  despair. 

This  cruel  control  has  been  obtained  by  the  pur- 
chase of  state,  county  and  municipal  officials,  seizure 
of  the  election  machinery,  the  peonage  of  employes, 
the  use  of  hired  desperadoes  and  the  constant  threat 
of  the  state  militia,  all  to  the  end  that  justice  has 
been  crushed  and  a  sovereign  state  buried  in  shame 
and  disaster. 

Eevolt  has  come  at  last.  Twelve  thousand 
wretched  men,  speaking  thirty-six  different  tongues, 
have  found  common  voice  in  a  cry  of  despair  that 
shakes  the  world.  It  is  to  their  relief  that  we  dedi- 
cate our  lives  and  our  liberties. 

We  demand  the  instant  seizure  of  the  coal  mines 
by  the  state  pending  an  agreement  between  the  op- 
erators and  the  strikers. 

We  demand  that  the  leases  of  13,276  acres  of 
school  land,  for  which  the  companies  pay  a  beggarly 
rental,  be  cancelled  at  once,  and  plans  laid  instantly 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  61 

for  development  by  the  state  of  the  473,000  acres  of 
coal  land  owned  by  the  state. 

We  demand  a  constitutional  amendment  repeal- 
ing the  infamous  Moyer  decision  rendered  by  cor- 
rupt judges  to  rob  the  humble  and  oppressed  of  their 
most  sacred  constitutional  guarantees. 

We  demand  that  our  legislature  repudiate  the 
$1,000,000  debt  that  the  coal  companies'  use  of  the 
militia  has  saddled  upon  the  state,  thereby  forcing 
capital  to  pay  its  own  bills. 

Governor  a  Traitor. 

We  brand  Elias  M.  Ammons,  governor,  and 
S.  E.  Fitzgarrald,  lieutenant  governor,  as  traitors 
to  the  people  and  accessories  to  the  murder  of  babies, 
and  we  call  upon  the  special  session  of  the  legisla- 
ture to  impeach  them  as  false  to  their  oaths  and 
their  God,  and  if  there  be  no  special  session,  we 
hereby  pledge  ourselves  to  institute  recall  proceed- 
ings so  that  these  servile  tools  of  special  privilege 
may  be  deprived  of  their  power  to  betray  and  op- 
press. 

And,  lest  it  be  thought  that  these  are  but  hasty 
determinations  that  will  pass  with  the  passion  of  the 
moment,  we  call  upon  the  justice-loving  citizens  of 
Colorado  to  arm  themselves  so  that  if  law  and  order 
be  still  defied,  we  may  be  able  to  protect  our  homes, 
our  loved  ones  and  our  sacred  rights. 

Mutiny  in  Militia. 

Six  hundred  men  were  ordered  out  by  Czar 
Chase.  But  the  Ludlow  massacre  was  even  a  stench 
in  the  nostrils  of  some  of  the  militiamen  who  had 
previously  terrorized  the  strike  district  by  robberies 
and  outrages  of  women  and  children,  and  only  about 
350  state  troopers  went  to  the  field. 

With  the  aid  of  operators'  machine  guns  and 
state  equipment,  they  left  nothing  undone  to  destroy 


62  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACKE 

the  miners  and  their  families.  For  six  months  they 
had  been  in  the  field  in  an  effort  to  break  the  strike 
and  had  failed. 

The  Ludlow  horror  was  planned  and  carried  out 
in  the  belief  that  this  massacre  of  women  and  chil- 
dren would  certainly  break  the  spirit  of  the  striking 
miners.  But  even  this  terrible  holocaust  would  not 
stop  the  miners  from  fighting  for  their  rights. 

So  now  came  the  state's  militia  back  to  the  field 
to  attempt  a  complete  physical  extermination  of  the 
strikers. 

In  every  section  of  Las  Animas,  Huerfano  and 
Fremont  counties  Colorado's  representative  troop- 
ers joined  the  murderous  mine  guards  in  attacks 
upon  the  miners. 

In  Boulder  county  where  the  northern  strike  has 
been  fought  for  four  years,  the  Baldwin-Feltz  de- 
tectives and  mine  guards  started  to  do  the  work 
alone. 

Machine  guns  were  turned  .on  the  towns  of  La- 
fayette and  Louisville  in  an  attempt  to  slaughter  the 
strikers  and  their  families  who  make  up  the  greater 
part  of  the  population  of  these  towns. 

Women  and  children  were  driven  from  their 
homes  to  Denver,  where  they  were  taken  care  of  at 
hotels  by  the  United  Mine  Workers.  For  five  days 
the  militia  and  imported  gunmen  waged  this  war 
upon  the  union  coal  miners. 

Strikers  Repel  Murderers. 

But  Ludlow  had  taught  the  strikers  a  lesson. 
They  were  prepared  against  a  possible  repetition  of 
the  Ludlow  horror.  Citizens  of  the  towns  and  ranch- 
ers, where  the  trouble  centered,  turned  over  their 
firearms  and  ammunition  to  the  union  men  and  they 
were  able  to  repel  the  attacks  of  Colorado's  uni- 
formed murderers. 

Three  union  men  were  killed  after  the  Ludlow 
massacre,  two  at  Aguilar  and  one  at  Walsenburg. 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  63 

The  militia  used  every  means  of  deception  to 
defeat  the  strikers  and  influence  public  opinion 
against  them. 

At  Walsenburg,  Major  P.  P.  Lester,  a  Red  Cross 
officer,  went  on  the  firing  line  when  the  fight  started 
on  "the  hogback." 

He  was  killed  while  engaged  in  the  fighting.  But 
the  militia  told  a  different  story.  They  gave  their 
prostituted  newspapers  a  sob  story  of  how  the  strik- 
ers had  killed  a  Red  Cross  officer  when  he  was  min- 
istering to  the  wounded. 

The  militia  at  first  announced  that  only  one  of 
their  men  had  been  killed  in  the  fighting.  Since  that 
time  five  more  bodies  have  been  found. 

Probably  the  most  vicious  fighting  after  Ludlow 
occurred  at  Forbes,  almost  two  weeks  later. 

For  months  the  militia  and  gunmen  had  been 
attempting  to  "clean  out"  that  colony.  March  10, 
when  Neil  Smith,  a  negro  strikebreaker,  got  drunk 
and  was  killed  by  a  train,  Czar  Chase  found  an  ex- 
cuse for  destroying  the  lower  tent  colony  at  Forbes. 
He  said  that  Smith  had  been  murdered  by  the  strik- 
ers. He  destroyed  the  miners'  homes,  threw  them 
out  into  a  blinding  snowstorm  without  food  or  shel- 
ter, but  he  did  not  "clean  out"  the  strikers. 

The  night  before  the  federal  troops  came  into 
the  strike  zone  the  murderous  mine  guards  decided 
to  make  one  last  attempt  to  do  this  work.  They  at- 
tacked the  strikers.  But  the  union  men  and  their 
families  had  long  been  expecting  just  such  an  attack, 
and  when  the  battle  was  over  nine  gunmen  and  scabs 
were  dead  and  part  of  the  Forbes  mine  destroyed. 

Chase  Defends  Thugs. 

Since  the  Ludlow  massacre,  the  state  militia  and 
Adjutant  General  John  Chase  have  done  everything 
in  their  power  to  discredit  the  strikers  and  to  coun- 
teract the  revolting  protest  of  the  people  of  the 


GOVERNOR  ELIAS  M.  AMMONS,  SPINELESS  TOOL  OF  THE 
COAL  OPERATORS 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  65 

United  States  against  the  murder  of  women  and 
children. 

Chase  himself  has  become  an  evangelist  in  the 
interest  of  the  "Law  and  Order  League, "  a  body 
boosted  by  prostituted  sheets  of  the  operators  and 
which  stands  for  anything  that  will  enable  the  corpo- 
rations to  own,  body  and  soul,  everything  in  the 
state  of  Colorado,  from  its  wonderful  natural  re- 
sources down  to  the  ignorant  men  of  foreign  nations 
whom  they  may  import  to  dig  wealth  for  them. 

Former  Judge  Advocate  Major  E.  J.  Boughton, 
notorious  tool  of  the  Cripple  Creek  operators,  has 
been  sent  east  by  Chase,  or  Cheese,  as  you  will,  to 
tell  the  people  that  no  women  and  children  were 
killed  at  Ludlow. 

Following  the  report  of  the  military  committee 
on  its  findings  in  the  Ludlow  affair,  a  court  martial 
has  been  held,  a  real  dignified  court  martial,  the 
members  of  which  have  for  years  taken  the  cham- 
pionship of  the  whitewash  league. 

Every  truth  long  since  established  by  the  coal 
miners  and  representative  citizens  has  been  denied 
by  the  imported  assassins  of  the  operators,  or,  let 
us  say,  the  Colorado  National  Guard. 

Newspapers  of  the  state  began  to  talk  of  the 
"whitewash/'  so  the  military  court  martial  decided 
that  there  must  be  a  "goat."  Lieut.  (Butcher)  K.  E. 
Linderfelt  was  selected.  He  testified  that  he  struck 
Louis  Tikas  on  the  head  and  broke  the  stock  of  his 
gun.  But  he  said  Louis  had  cursed  him  for  murder- 
ing the  women  and  children.  Knowing  the  person- 
nel of  the  court  martial,  citizens  of  Colorado  expect 
that  Linderfelt  will  probably  be  punished  "severely" 
by  the  militia  for  the  murder  of  Tikas.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  these  citizens  believe  that  the  court  martial 
officials,  of  operators'  tools,  as  you  wish,  will  decide 
that  in  the  murder  of  Louis  Tikas,  Linderfelt  was 
guilty  of  conduct  unbecoming  an  officer  and  may  cen- 
sure him  severely. 


66  THE    LUDLOW     MASSACKE 

Since  the  federal  troops  arrived  there  has  been 
no  disturbance,  except  during  the  last  week  in  May, 
when  several  gunmen  attacked  the  United  States 
troops. 

The  coal  barons  went  at  once  to  the  officers  and 
blamed  it  on  the  strikers. 

It  was  just  another  example  of  the  hysterical, 
malicious  efforts  of  the  operators  to  discredit  the 
strikers. 

The  operators  said  it  was  evident  that  strikers 
fired  the  shots  since  they  came  from  their  tent  col- 
ony. To  one  not  acquainted  with  methods  of  the  coal 
barons  this  would  seem  reasonable.  But  the  people 
of  Colorado  remember  the  dynamite  which  the  strik- 
ers were  supposed  to  have  planted  and  exploded  at 
Sopris  to  terrorize  the  neighborhood.  For  months 
the  union  men  were  charged  with  these  acts  of  law- 
lessness. 

And  then  came  the  congressional  investigation. 
The  coal  barons  called  Tony  Langowski  to  prove  that 
the  strikers  were  responsible.  Tony  told  of  how  the 
operators  had  paid  him  $3  a  day  to  join  the  union 
as  a  spotter.  He  said  he  had  become  secretary  of 
the  Sopris  local  and  received  $3  a  week  from  the 
union. 

Spotters  Terrorize  Towns. 

But  he  did  not  tell  the  story  the  operators  put 
him  on  the  stand  to  tell.  He  said  that  all  of  fhese 
dynamite  explosions  had  been  deliberately  planned 
and  carried  out  by  the  spotters  of  the  operators  in 
the  union  to  throw  discredit  on  the  real  striking  coal 
miners. 

If  the  shots  did  come  from  the  strikers'  colony, 
citizens  of  Colorado  are  convinced  that  they  were 
fired  by  another  Tony  Langowski  in  the  pay  of  the 
coal  operators. 

As  long  as  the  coal  mines  where  the  trouble 
centers  are  allowed  to  run  with  imported  scabs  and 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  67 

gunmen,  there  is  certain  to  be  bloodshed  unless  the 
federal  troops  are  kept  in  the  field. 

That  Ainmons  has  not  completed  his  work  for 
the  coal  operators  and  still  hopes  to  serve  them  by 
trying  again  to  break  the  strike  with  the  state  militia 
was  shown  by  the  special  session  of  the  state  legis- 
lature. 

The  legislators  were  called  together  by  Ammons 
to  provide  means  of  paying  the  $700,000  military 
debt  contracted  by  him  and  his  lickspittle  partner  of 
the  coal  operators,  John  Chase,  in  their  attempt  to 
break  the  strike. 

A  saloonkeeper  and  gambler  and  notorious  tool 
of  the  operators  was  elected  speaker  of  the  house, 
and  when  the  legislature  adjourned  its  members  had 
passed  a  $1,000,000  appropriation  bill,  providing 
$300,000  to  send  the  militia  back  into  the  strike  dis- 
trict to  carry  on  their  work  of  intimidation  and  ter- 
ror if  the  federal  troops  are  withdrawn. 

The  people  of  Colorado  know  what  this  state 
militia  did  before  the  Ludlow  massacre. 

They  know  how  they  attempted  to  slaughter 
women  with  babes  in  their  arms'  on  the  streets  of 
Trinidad  January  22,  1914;  they  know  how  they 
robbed  and  plundered  and  destroyed  homes;  they 
know  how  they  insulted  and  abused  and  outraged 
women ;  they  know  how  they  denied  men  and  women 
their  constitutional  rights,  filled  jails  with  innocent 
strikers  and  held  them  incommunicado  as  military 
prisoners  and  committed  countless  other  outrages 
in  their  effort  to  break  the  spirit  of  the  strikers. 

They  know  that  if  the  federal  troops  are  re- 
moved and  the  militia  returned  to  the  field,  the  state 
troopers  will  carry  on  their  work  of  carnage  in  a 
vain  effort  to  break  the  strike. 

As  long  as  the  federal  troops  remain  in  the  field, 
peace  will  continue  as  far  as  the  strikers  are  con- 
cerned. 


>,>v 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 


69 


Only  the  future  can  tell  what  is  to  be  the  fate 
of  the  Colorado  strikers  and  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren. 

The  Ludlow  massacre  and  the  Colorado  situa- 
tion as  it  stands  today  is  a  gruesome  prophecy  to 
labor  men  of  the  world. 

They  need  but  realize  that  the  Colorado  coal 
miners  have  suffered  all  of  the  outrages  mentioned 
in  this  book  and  many  more  in  a  fight  to  secure  an 
enforcement  of  the  laws  of  the  state  of  Colorado,  to 
realize  what  may  be  their  fate  in  the  future. 


THE    LUDLOW     MASSACRE  71 

Causes  of  the  Strike 

The  bloody  massacre  of  twenty-one  men,  women 
and  children  at  Ludlow,  Colo.,  April  20,  1914,  was 
the  final  effort  of  the  coal  operators  and  John  D. 
Rockefeller  to  wipe  out  every  vestige  of  the  labor 
movement  in  Colorado  and  to  give  warning  to  any 
who  might  demand  their  constitutional  rights  that 
theirs  would  be  a  similar  fate. 

For  more  than  thirty  years  the  coal  miners  of 
Colorado  have  been  only  so  many  slaves  of  the 
operators.  Every  industrial,  political  and  religious 
right  has  been  denied  them.  Legislation  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  workers  has  availed  them  nothing,  for 
the  coal  companies  have  owned  the  courts. 

As  early  as  1884  the  miners  banded  themselves 
together  in  an  effort  to  get  those  rights  granted 
them  by  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  and 
the  statutes  of  Colorado.  Each  time,  however,  by 
murdering  them,  by  burning  their  homes,  by  deport- 
ing them,  and  other  high-handed  methods  the  oper- 
ators were  able  to  break  the  strike. 

In  1904  the  miners  made  their  most  valiant 
effort  to  break  their  bondage.  For  months  and 
months  they  fought,  suffered  untold  privations, 
only  in  the  end  to  be  deported  from  Colorado  like 
so  many  cattle  in  box  cars. 

Immediately  after  that  strike  was  called  off, 
6,000  men  who  had  belonged  to  the  union  were 
blacklisted.  Some  of  the  mine  owners  opposed  this 
policy,  but  were  forced  to  carry  it  out  through  the 
absolute  domination  of  the  state  by  Eockefeller  and 
the  larger  corporations.  If  they  refused  to  obey  the 
mandates  of  the  triumvirate,  certain  ruin  was  the 
result.  Sometimes  their  credit  was  stopped  at  the 
banks.  At  other  times  the  Eockefeller  gang  would 
go  into  their  market  and  undersell  them  as  much  as 
one  dollar  a  ton.  Other  methods  were  used  and 
always  successfully,  with  the  result  that  no  matter 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  73 

how  a  man  might  feel  toward  his  men  he  must  sub- 
mit to  the  tyrannies  of  the  larger  companies. 

The  oppressions  of  the  men  which  led  up  to  the 
present  strike  are  so  foreign  to  American  liberty 
that  they  are  almost  unbelievable  to  the  man  who 
believes  that  constitutional  government  does  exist 
everywhere  in  this  supposed  land  of  the  free.  But 
men  who  have  suffered  them  for  years  have  abso- 
lutely established  them  as  facts  before  the  congres- 
sional committee  which  recently  investigated  the 
Colorado  strike,  and  they  must  be  believed. 

Operators  Break  Laws. 

One  of  the  many  laws  passed  in  the  interests 
of  the  miners  is  that  providing  for  a  checkweigh- 
man.  This  has  been  a  statute  for  a  decade,  but  the 
miners  have  never  been  allowed  a  checkweighman. 
Here  and  there  men  robbed  of  700  to  1,400  pounds 
of  coal  on  every  car  they  mined  would  get  together 
and  demand  their  state  right  to  have  a  checkweigh- 
man. They  were  discharged  at  once. 

The  abolition  of  the  scrip  system,  the  granting 
of  the  right  to  trade  wherever .  they  pleased,  to  be- 
long to  a  union,  and  the  establishing  of  a  semi- 
monthly pay-day,  are  other  laws  and  rights  passed 
by  the  Colorado  legislature,  but  which  the  operators 
have  always  denied  the  men. 

The  miners  of  Colorado  have  never  been  allowed 
their  political  rights.  On  election  day  they  were 
driven  like  so  many  sheep  to  the  polls.  The  super- 
intendent sent  one  man  in  to  vote.  He  marked  a 
ballot,  but  instead  of  placing  it  in  the  box  took  it  to 
the  superintendent.  This  was  given  to  a  man  to 
place  in  the  ballot  box,  and  he  in  turn  brought  out 
a  ballot  marked  in  the  same  way.  Thus  the  endless 
chain  was  continued.  Any  man  who  refused  to  vote 
was  discharged  and  driven  out  of  the  county.  At 
times  when  even  this  method  would  not  win  an  elec- 
tion, some  prominent  man  was  arrested.  His 


74  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

friends  were  told  that  he  would  be  " fixed"  if  they 
did  not  make  his  followers  vote  the  way  of  the  coal 
operators. 

If  the  coal  operators  wanted  to  "get"  anyone 
and  they  did  get  everyone  suspected  of  even  being 
a  union  sympathizer,  the  sheriff  in  either  Las  Ani- 
mas*  or  Huerf ano  counties  did  the  work.  Men  were 
arrested  on  trumped-up  charges  and  tried  by  fixed 
juries.  An  example  of  the  rotten  conditions  in 
Huerf  ano  County  was  given  the  congressional  in- 
vestigating committee.  Louis  Miller,  a  notorious 
thug  and  deputy  sheriff,  assaulted  a  union  man, 
breaking  his  jaw.  The  miner  had  Miller  arrested. 
He  was  tried  and  acquitted  by  a  jury,  seven  of 
whom  were  likewise  deputy  sheriffs. 

Lawson  Persecuted. 

The  case  of  John  B.  Lawson,  international  board 
member  of  the  United  Mine  Workers  of  America, 
shows  how  rotten  is  the  government  in  the  strike 
district  and  how  they  "get"  union  men  whether 
there  is  anything  against  them  or  not. 

In  1906,  Lawson  went  into  Huerfano  county  to 
organize  the  miners.  The  operators  spotted  him  at 
once  and  ordered  the  sheriff  to  "get"  Lawson. 

But  the  labor  leader  broke  no  laws.  The  coal 
barons  finally  became  frantic  to  think  that  there  was 
a  union  man  at  large  in  their  midst  informing  the 
men  of  their  constitutional  rights,  and  ordered  the 
sheriff  to  "get"  Lawson  or  get  out  himself. 

So,  one  night  Lawson  left  Walsenburg  to  visit 
a  nearby  mining  camp.  Two  thugs  of  the  sheriff 
followed  him.  When  Lawson  reached  the  edge  of 
the  town,  one  of  the  thugs  stepped  up  to  him.  An- 
other put  a  six-shooter  in  the  union  man's  pocket 
and  the  first  "police"  officer  arrested  Lawson  for 
carrying  concealed  deadly  weapons. 

The  union  organizer  was  placed  in  jail  and  held 
there. 


THE    LTTDLOW    MASSACRE  75 

Strikebreakers  brought  in  from  every  section 
of  Europe  and  Japan  to  take  the  places  of  the 
blacklisted  and  deported  miners  of  the  1904  strike 
soon  began  to  realize  that  Huerfano  and  Las  Animas 
counties,  Colorado,  were  not  a  part  of  the  United 
States — that  constitutional  government  did  not  exist 
there.  They,  too,  began  to  clamor  for  their  rights. 
They  received  their  discharge  and  were  sent  "down 
the  canyon/' 

They  realized  that  only  by  organization  could 
they  hope  to  obtain  their  constitutional  rights  and 
they  began  petitioning  the  United  Mine  Workers  of 
America  to  organize  them.  Finally  in  1911  organ- 
izers were  sent  into  the  district,  only  to  be  beaten 
up  and  driven  out. 

11,232  Men  Strike. 

Conditions  finally  became  so  unbearable  that 
the  miners  sent  delegates  to  a  convention  at  Trin- 
idad, Colorado,  September  16,  1913.  They  de- 
manded to  strike  at  once,  but  cooler  heads  of  the 
Mine  Workers  insisted  that  they  give  the  operators 
a  week  in  which  to  meet  with  them  and  discuss  their 
grievances.  The  coal  barons  refused  to  meet  their 
men,  and  September  23,  1913,  11,232  men  left  their 
work  in  a  fight  to  a  finish  to  get  the  seven  demands 
drawn  up  at  the  Trinidad  convention.  All  of  these 
with  the  exception  of  a  slight  increase  in  wages  are 
granted  by  the  laws  of  the  state. 

When  the  operators  saw  a  strike  was  inevitable 
the  Baldwin  Feltz  detective  agency  was  employed, 
and  hundreds  of  gunmen  and  hired  assassins,  many 
of  whom  had  murdered  women  and  children  in  the 
West  Virginia  strike,  were  brought  into  the  state. 
More  than  a  dozen  machine  guns  were  purchased 
and  a  systematic  reign  of  terror  that  has  known  no 
equal  in  the  history  of  industrial  conflicts  was  begun 
by  these  hired  murderers  of  John  D.  Rockefeller. 
Gerald  Lippiatt  was  the  first  to  pay  the  death  pen- 


ORDERS 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACBE  77 

alty.    He  was  murdered  in  the  streets  of  Trinidad 
August  16,  1913. 

One  of  the  most  dastardly  death-dealing  de- 
vices employed  by  the  coal  barons  to  harrass,  intim- 
idate and  murder  the  strikers  was  a  high-powered 
automobile  covered  with  armor  plate  and  mounted 
with  a  machine  gun  and  six  thugs  with  high-powered 
rifles. 

Death  Special  at  Work. 

During  the  day  this  "  Death  Special "  was 
driven  at  top  speed  through  the  strike  zone,  shoot- 
ing into  the  tent  colonies.  One  of  the  most  ne- 
farious acts  of  these  hired  murderers  of  industry 
was  the  attack  on  the  Forbes  tent  colony  of  peaceful 
strikers.  On  the  afternoon  of  October  17  the 
strikers  were  aroused  from  the  quiet  monotony  of 
their  existence  by 'the  approach  of  an  automobile. 
They  crowded  to  the  entrance  to  the  colony  to  meet 
a  man  who  came  toward  them  bearing  a  white  flag. 
The  leader  of  the  strikers  went  to  greet  him.  The 
gunman  exhibited  a  union  card  and  asked  the  men 
whether  they  too  belonged  to  the  union.  They  said 
they  did.  "Well,  if  you  do,  you'd  better  look  out," 
said  he.  The  gunman  dropped  the  flag  and  the 
shooting  began.  A  whistling  reign  of  bullets  scat- 
tered the  men  and  women  to  every  possible  place  of 
safety.  But  the  bullets  were  faster  than  humans. 
One  man  was  killed  and  a  young  boy  received  nine 
bullet  wounds  in  the  leg  while  he  was  trying  to  crawl 
into  his  tent. 

In  these  tented  cities  of  the  strikers  were  hun- 
dreds of  mothers  with  babes  at  their  breasts,  men, 
women  and  children  braving  the  elements,  the  hard- 
ships of  life,  but  happy  in  the  belief  that  the  dawn 
of  a  happier  civilization  was  at  hand.  When  the 
children  went  to  play  in  the  day,  mothers  and 
fathers  never  knew  whether  their  homes  would  be 
destroyed  before  their  return  nor  whether  the  happy 


78  THE    LUDLOW     MASSACRE 

little  future  citizens  of  the  United  States  would 
meet  the  terrible  fate  suffered  by  the  residents  of 
Ludlow  at  the  hands  of  the  gunmen. 

And  if  the  day  did  pass  without  slaughter,  the 
night  was  spent  in  equal  terror  of  these  imported 
assassins.  On  every  point  of  vantage  surrounding 
the  tent  colonies  the;  operators  placed  searchlights. 
The  panic  among  the  strikers  and  their  families 
which  they  had  kept  up  during  the  day  was  con- 
tinued at  night  by  the  searchlight.  These  powerful 
machines  were  played  on  the  tent  colonies  from 
dusk  to  dawn,  making  it  impossible  for  the  strikers 
to  sleep  and  keeping  them  in  constant  fear  of  an 
attack  by  machine  guns  and  high-powered  rifles, 
which  might  come  at  any  moment  from  the  gunmen 
who  make  their  living  by  murdering  and  terrorizing 
their  brothers  and  sisters. 

In  October  the  operators,  who  own  Huerfano 
County,  placed  some  of  their  thugs  with  a  machine 
gun  in  Walsenburg.  It  was  turned  loose  on  the 
unarmed  and  peaceful  strikers  who  lined  the  street. 
When  the  smoke  cleared  away  four  members  of  the 
United  Mine  Workers  had  paid  the  penalty  of  fight- 
ing for  their  constitutional  rights  in  Colorado. 

Gunmen  Murder  Eleven. 

When  the  state  militia  was  called  out  October 
27,  1913,  eleven  striking  coal  miners  had  been  killed 
by  these  murderers  of  John  D.  Eockefeller  and  his 
subordinates,  the  Colorado  coal  operators. 

But  if  the  gunmen  were  murderers,  if  they  were 
robbers,  if  they  were  abusers  of  women,  they  were 
better  than  the  Colorado  National  Guard,  under  the 
command  of  John  Chase,  who,  drunk  with  the  flat- 
tery of  his  bosses,  the  operators,  and  intoxicated 
with  an  ill-founded  idea  of  his  own  importance, 
stopped  at  nothing  in  his  effort  to  break  the  strike 
of  the  coal  miners. 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE  79 

It  is  impossible  to  tell  in  a  few  lines  of  the 
atrocities  of  the  so-called  militiamen,  many  of  whom 
were  recruited  from  the  civic  cesspools  of  the  world 
and  the  Baldwin  Feltz  hired  assassins. 

Constitutional  government  was  absolutely  set 
aside  by  the  state  militia.  The  case  of  Mother  Jones, 
82-year-old  angel  of  the  coal  camps,  illustrates  the 
truth  of  this  statement. 

When  the  strike  started,  Mother  Jones  was  on 
the  scene  doing  all  in  her  power  to  help  the  women 
and  children.  During  this  time  she  did  much  to  keep 
the  men  of  the  strike  colonies  orderly  and  law-abid- 
ing. 

When  the  militia  went  into  the  field  and  started 
its  reign  of  terror,  Mother  Jones  denounced  their 
actions  in  no  uncertain  terms.  During  the  latter 
part  of  December  she  stopped  in  Trinidad  on  her 
way  from  El  Paso  to  Denver.  She  was  deported  at 
once  by  the  militia. 

For  months  Elias  M.  Ammons,  lickspittle  of  the 
coal  operators  and  cattle-puncher,  but  bearing  the 
title  of  governor  of  Colorado,  had  threatened  to  ar- 
rest Mother  Jones  if  she  attempted  to  enter  the 
strike  zone. 

Mother  Jones  in  Bull  Pen. 

Determined  that  she  would  exercise  her  consti- 
tutional right  to  go  where  and  when  she  pleased, 
Mother  Jones  eluded  three  "thugs  who  were  spotting 
her  and  went  to  Trinidad,  Sunday  evening,  January 
llth. 

One  hundred  and  fifty  militiamen  stormed  the 
Toltec  hotel  shortly  before  noon  the  next  day  and 
succeeded  in  making  her  a  military  prisoner.  She 
was  taken  to  San  Rafael  hospital,  which  was  turned 
into  a  military  bastile,  and  held  incommunicado  for 
nine  weeks. 

Through  the  United  Mine  Workers'  attorney, 
Horace  N.  Hawkins,  she  applied  to  the  state  supreme 


.•a 

•  — < 


£ 
O 


OJ 

.£ 


E2 


THE    L  u  D  L  o  w     MASSACRE  8.1 

court  for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  Before  the  court 
could  hand  down  a  decision,  the  militiamen  went  to 
her  with  the  announcement  that  Governor  Ammons 
desired  to  talk  to  her.  When  she  reached  Denver  the 
militia  gave  out  the  statement  that  she  had  asked  to 
come  to  Denver  and  that  she  was  no  longer  a  pris- 
oner, thus  forestalling  a  possible  reversal  of  the 
notorious  Moyer  decision. 

A  week  later  she  returned  to  the  strike  zone  and 
this  time  was  kidnapped  from  the  train  at  Walsen- 
burg  and  thrown  into  a  vermin-ridden  cellar  cell  in 
the  Huerfano  county  jail. 

Finally  the  supreme  court  issued  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus,  ordering  the  militia  to  show  cause 
why  she  should  not  be  liberated.  But  the  militia 
again  prevented  a  reversal  of  the  Moyer  decision  by 
releasing  her  before  the  date  of  hearing  set  by  the 
supreme  court. 

The  Colorado  militia  went  wild  in  their  efforts 
to  break  the  strike.  They  interfered  with  the  United 
States  mail,  with  United  States  officials,  and  pre- 
vented state  officers  from  carrying  out  their  regular 
work  of  inspecting  the  mines. 

One  of  the  many  instances  of  the  latter  was  had 
when  State  Factory  Inspectors  Eli  Gross,  Frank 
Mancini  and  George  Howe  went  to  Delagua  and  Has- 
tings to  learn  whether  the  m.en  were  being  held  in 
the  mines  against  their  will. 

When  company  and  militia  officers  learned  that 
Mancini,  who  is  editor  of  an  Italian  paper  favorable 
to  the  miners,  was  in  the  party,  they  refused  them 
admittance  to  the  mine. 

To  add  to  this  outrage,  Major  Hamrock,  saloon- 
keeper, officer  of  .the  militia  and  later  in  charge  of 
the  Ludlow  murderers  of  women,  children  and  un- 
born babes,  tried  to  make  political  capital  out  of  the 
incident  by  deliberately  lying  when  he  said  that  Man- 
cini had  told  him  he  had  orders  from  Deputy  Labor 


82  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

Commissioner  E.  V.  Brake  to  get  the  men  out  of  the 
mines. 

Homes  Plundered. 

Homes  were  broken  into  on  the  pretense  that 
these  militiamen  were  searching  for  arms.  They 
had  no  search  warrants.  The  authority  of  Rocke- 
feller's approval,  or  the  state  of  Colorado,  as  you 
please,  was  sufficient  warrant  for  their  plundering 
expeditions,  and  they  stole  everything  of  value. 

One  of  the  most  pitiful  stories  told  the  con- 
gressional investigating  committee  was  that  of  a 
little  son  of  Mrs.  Yankinski.  She  had  gone  to  town, 
leaving  her  four  little  children  alone  in  the  house. 
Along  came  a  militiaman  and  his  captain,  the  latter 
lying  on  the  seat  in  a  drunken  stupor.  The  militia- 
man entered  and  began  a  search.  He  finally  found 
$200  sewed  in  the  hem  of  an  old  coat.  The  little 
boy  was  prostrated  when  he  saw  the  "soldier"  was 
going  to  take  the  money  and  was  rewarded  with  a 
punch  on  the  jaw.  When  he  fell  from  the  blow  the 
gunman-militiaman  kicked  him  in  the  face.  A 
younger  sister  began  to  cry  when  she  saw  that  her 
brother  had  been  hurt,  and  she  too  was  knocked 
down.  The  robber  kicked  her  in  the  face,  breaking 
her  nose.  The  incident  happened  several  days  be- 
fore the  congressional  investigating  committee  ar- 
rived in  the  strike  zone,  but  the  child's  nose  was 
so  seriously  fractured  that  she  was  unable  to  testify 
before  the  congressman. 

Over  in  Segundo  a  woman  was  taking  one  of 
her  children  to  visit  relatives.  A  drunken  militia- 
man took  the  child  from  her,  made  the  tot  line  up 
with  other  'children,  and  then  forced  the  procession 
of  children  to  march  about  the  city  for  two  hours 
while  he  jabbed  them  now  and  then  with  a  bayonet 
to  make  them  realize  that  they  were  marching  on  the 
orders  of  one  of  the  "peace-preservers"  of  the  cap- 
italistic-ridden state  of  Colorado. 


THE    LUDLOW     MASSACRE  83 

Women  Outraged. 

Someone  fired  a  shot  at  Aguilar  one  night.  Two 
militiamen  saw  several  women  come  out  of  a  back 
gate.  They  grabbed  them  and  dragged  both  through 
a  snow-covered  alley  to  the  jail.  Oiie  of  these 
women  was  to  become  a  mother  in  a  few  hours. 
She  fainted,  but  that  did  not  prevent  the  scab-herd- 
ing militia  of  the  state  of  Colorado  from  putting  her 
through  the  notorious  third  degree.  When  a  doctor 
informed  the  "arm  of  Colorado  law"  that  the 
mother  might  at  any  moment  give  birth  to  the  child, 
the  woman  was  released  and  allowed  to  go  to  her 
home.  It  was  later  proved  that  the  shots  were  fired 
by  some  of  the  gunmen  militiamen  in  an  attempt 
to  start  a  battle  and  murder  the  strikers  and  their 
wives  and  children. 

Saloonkeepers  were  also  favorite  subjects  of 
torture  for  the  militiamen.  In  Segundo  on6  night 
four  militiamen  went  to  the  door  of  a  saloon  after 
twelve  o  'clock  at  night.  They  demanded  admittance 
and  were  refused.  Guns  belonging  to  the  state  of 
Colorado,  or  Rockefeller,  were  put  into  use,  the  door 
battered  in,  the  saloonkeeper  knocked  unconscious. 
After  becoming  intoxicated,  they  left  the  uncon- 
scious saloonkeeper  on  the  floor,  and  carried  out  all 
the  liquor  their  arms  would  hold.  Other  saloons 
were  robbed  and  the  proprietors  beaten  up,  but  no 
action  against  them  has  ever  been  brought  by  the 
state. 

Mothers  and  Babes  Maimed. 

One  of  the  most  notorious  outrages  of  the  mili- 
tary rule  in  the  strike  district  occurred  January  22. 
Mother  Jones  had  been  placed  in  a  military  bastile 
because  she  insisted  that  as  an  American  citizen  she 
had  a  right  to  come  and  go  where  and  when  she 
pleased.  The  women  of  Trinidad  and  the  strike 
zone  decided  to  hold  a  protest  parade.  They  went 
to  Adjutant  General  Chase.  He  approved  their 


MILITARISM 

The  above  picture  shows  Mother  Jones,  82-year-old  angel  of  the  coal 
camps,  confined  in  a  damp,  filthy,  cold,  cellar  cell  in  the  Walsenburg, 
Colo.,  jail.  She  was  kidnaped,  taken  from  a  train  while  on  her  way  to 
Trinidad,  and  placed  in  this  cell  to  be  held  incommunicado  as  a  military 
prisoner.  Her  announcement  that  she  intended  to  exercise  her  consti- 
tutional right  as  an  American  citizen  to  go  where  and  when  she  pleased 
was  the  only  reason  given  by  the  $700,000  militia  for  this  outrage.  This 
same  cell  is  so  uninhabitable  that  it  caused  the  death  of  a  healthy  young 
Greek,  who  contracted  rheumatism  of  the  heart. 


THE    LUDLOW     MASSACRE  85 

line  of  inarch  and  the  parade  was  held.  Down  the 
street  they  went,  little  children  trotting  beside  their 
mothers  carrying  babes  at  their  breast.  Nothing 
could  have  been  more  orderly.  Suddenly  down  the 
street  rushed  the  mounted  troopers  of  the  state  of 
Colorado  with  sabers  drawn.  At  their  head  was 
Chase.  Women  and  children  were  trampled  under 
the  hoofs  of  the  horses,  mothers  were  slashed  with 
sabers,  more  than  a  dozen  of  them  being  mutilated. 

But  if  this  was  a  horrible  outrage,  it  did  not 
equal  the  bloodthirsty  actions  of  this  inhuman 
despot,  Chase.  Sarah  Slator,  a  16-year-old  girl,  was 
returning  from  school.  When  she  saw  the  attempted 
wholesale  massacre  of  women  and  children  she 
stopped  to  see  the  trouble.  Chase,  a  man  clothed 
with  the  full  military  authority  of  the  state  of  Colo- 
rado, rode  up  and  ordered  her  to  move  on.  Her 
feet  could  not  move  fast  enough  to  please  the  blood- 
thirsty military  tool  of  the  coal  operators,  and  the 
general  of  the  militia  of  the  state  of  Colorado 
kicked  this  little  innocent  school  girl  in  the  breast 
so  savagely  that  she  may  never  be  able  to  nurse  a 
babe. 

Nothing  was  left  undone  by  the  militiamen  to 
prove  that  they  were  no  more  than  the  employes  of 
the  coal  operators.  For  months  they  threatened  to 
"  clean  out  the  tent  colonies  and  every  d—  -  rough 
red-neck  in  them."  They  could  find  no  excuse.  One 
night  a  negro  strikebreaker  got  drunk  and  went  to 
sleep  on  a  railroad  track  near  Suffield.  He  was  run 
over  and  killed  by  an  approaching  train.  Foxhounds 
were  placed  on  the  trial  of  the  "  murderer. "  They 
went  the  opposite  direction  from  the  Forbes  tent 
colony.  No  proof  -could  be  fastened  on  strikers  by 
going  this  way,  so  the  militia  thugs  led  the  hounds 
into  the  Forbes  tent  colony.  The  news  was  flashed 
to  the  world  that  bloodhounds  had  tracked  the 
"  murderer "  to  the  Forbes  colony.  The  Colorado- 
clothed  fiends  demolished  the  tent  colony,  throwing 


86  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

the  men,  women  and  children  out  into  a  blinding 
snowstorm,  with  the  nearest  place  of  shelter  several 
miles  away.  Sixteen  of  the  strikers  were  arrested 
for  the  murder  of  the  drunken  strikebreaker  who 
was  killed  by  a  train. 

Miners  Held  Incommunicado. 

One  of  the  favorite  methods  used  by  the  militia 
in  their  attempt  to  break  the  strike  was  to  arrest 
union  officials  and  strikers  by  the  wholesale  without 
warrant  or  charge  and  hold  them  incommunicado. 
In  jail  they  were  subjected  to  untold  torture  and 
threatened  with  all  kinds  of  violent  deaths  unless 
they  implicated  high  officials  of  the  United  Mine 
Workers  in  some  crime.  For  five  and  six  nights  at 
a  time  these  poor  strikers  were  kept  awake  by  bay- 
onet jabs  and  dashes  of  cold  water. 

It  was  these  and  hundreds  of  other  tyrannies 
and  outrages  practised  on  the  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren of  the  strike  zone  that  led  up  to  the  horrible 
massacre  of  innocents  at  Ludlow,  April  20. 

The  militia,  after  incurring  a  debt  of  $1,000,000 
on  the  state  to  aid  the  coal  operators,  had  been 
withdrawn  the  Thursday  before.  They  had  no 
sooner  been  taken  from  the  field  than  all  the  hired 
murderers  of  the  coal  operators  in  that  district 
were  recruited  into  the  militia.  These  assassins 
were  stationed  at  Ludlow  under  command  of  Major 
Pat  Hamrock  and  Lieutenant  Karl  E.  Linderfelt, 
who  for  months  had  threatened  to  clean  out  all  the 
tent  colonies  and  "murder  every  d—  -  one  of  those 
red-necks. " 

The  cause  of  the  entire  trouble  in  Colorado  was 
summarized  by  Judge  Ben  B.  Lindsey  of  Denver 
when  he  testified  before  the  Committee  on  Industrial 
Relations  in  New  York  City. 

He  said:  "Colorado  has  perfected  the  science 
of  corrupting  men.  Its  judges,  its  supreme  court 


THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 


87 


judge,  are  owned  like  the  office  boy;  its  business 
men,  its  lawyers,  are  all  owned. 

"  Capitalists  in  Colorado  have  carried  out  most 
perfidious  deals  to  control  the  agencies  of  the  laws, 
and  not  only  make  laws,  but  prevent  the  enforcement 
of  laws." 


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THE    LUDLOW     MASSACRE  89 

The  Massacre  of  the  Innocents 

(The  Eocky  Mountain  News) 

(Note — The  following  editorial  appeared  in  the 
News  April  22,  1914,  two  days  after  the  Ludlow  hor- 
ror. Prior  to  that  time  the  News  had  favored  the 
operators.) 

The  horror  of  the  shambles  at  Ludlow  is  over- 
whelming. Not  since  the  days  when  pitiless  red  men 
wreaked  vengeance  upon  intruding  frontiersmen  and 
upon  their  women  and  children  has  this  western 
country  been  stained  with  so  foul  a  deed. 

The  details  of  the  massacre  are  horrible.  Mex- 
ico offers  no  barbarity  so  base  as  that  of  the  murder 
of  defenseless  women  and  children  by  the  mine 
guards  in  soldiers'  clothing.  Like  whitened  sepul- 
chres we  boast  of  American  civilization  with  this 
infamous  thing  at  our  very  doors.  Hucrta  murdered 
Madero,  but  even  Huerta  did  not  shoot  an  innocent 
little  boy  seeking  water  for  his  mother  who  lay  ill. 
Villa  is  a  barbarian,  but  in  his  maddest  excess  Villa 
has  not  turned  machine  guns  on  imprisoned  women 
and  children.  Where  is  the  outlaw  so  far  beyond 
the  pale  of  human  kind  as  to  burn  the  tent  over  the 
heads  of  nursing  mothers  and  helpless  little  babies  f 

Out  of  this  infamy  one  fact  stands  clear.  Ma- 
chine guns  did  the  murder.  The  machine  guns  were 
in  the  hands  of  mine  guards,  most  of  whom  were 
also  members  of  the  militia.  It  was  a  private  war, 
with  the  wealth  of  the  richest  man  in  the  world  be- 
hind the  mine  guards. 

Once  and  for  all  time  the  right  to  employ  armed 
guards  must  be  taken  away  from  private  individuals 
and  corporations.  To  the  state,  and  to  the  state 
alone,  belongs  the  right  to  maintain  peace.  Any- 
thing else  is  anarchy.  Private  warfare  is  the  only 
sort  of  anarchy  the  world  has  ever  known,  and  armed 
forces  employed  by  private  interests  have  introduced 


90  THE    LUDLOW    MASSACRE 

the  only  private  wars  of  modern  times.  This  prac- 
tice must  be  stopped.  If  the  state  laws  are  not 
strong  enough,  then  the  federal  government  must 
step  in.  At  any  cost,  private  warfare  must  be  de- 
stroyed. 

Who  are  these  mine  guards  to  whom  is  entrusted 
the  sovereign  right  to  massacre?  Four  of  the  fra- 
ternity were  electrocuted  recently  in  New  York.  They 
are  the  gunmen  of  the  great  cities,  the  offscourings 
of  humanity,  whom  a  bitter  heritage  has  made  the 
wastrels  of  the  world.  Warped  by  the  wrongs  of 
their  own  upbringing,  they  know  no  justice  and  they 
care  not  for  mercy.  They  are  hardly  human  in  in- 
telligence, and  not  as  high  in  the  scale  of  kindness 
as  domestic  animals. 

Yet  they  are  not  the  guilty  ones.  The  blood  of 
the  innocent  women  and  children  rests  on  the  hands 
of  those  who  for  the  greed  of  dollars  employed  such 
men  and  bought  such  machines  of  murder.  The 
world  has  not  been  hard  upon  these ;  theirs  has  been 
a  gentle  upbringing.  Yet  they  reck  not  of  human 
life  when  pecuniary  interests  are  involved. 

The  blood  of  the  women  and  children,  burned 
and  shot  like  rats,  cries  aloud  from  the  ground.  The 
great  state  of  Colorado  has  failed  them.  It  has  be- 
trayed them.  Her  militia,  which  should  have  been 
the  impartial  protectors  of  the  peace  have  acted  as 
murderous  gunmen.  The  machine  guns  which  played 
in  the  darkness  upon  the  homes  of  humble  men  and 
women,  whose  only  crime  was  an  effort  to  earn  an 
honest  living,  were  bought  and  paid  for  by  agents 
of  the  mine  owners.  Explosive  bullets  have  been 
used  on  children.  Does  the  bloodiest  page  in  the 
French  revolution  approach  this  in  hideousness? 

In  the  name  of  humanity,  in  the  name  of  civili- 
zation, we  have  appealed  to  President  Wilson.  His 
ear  heard  the  wail  of  the  innocent,  outraged  and 
dying  in  Mexico.  Cannot  the  president  give  heed  to 
the  sufferings  of  his  own  people? 


THE    L  u  D  L  o  w    MASSACRE 


91 


Think,  Mr.  President,  of  the  captain  of  the  strik- 
ers, Louis  Tikas,  whose  truce  with  the  gunmen  was 
ended  with  his  murder.  Think  of  the  fifty-one  shots 
which  were  passed  through  the  strike  leader.  Think 
of  his  body,  which  has  lain  exposed  since  his  in- 
famous killing.  Then,  with  that  vast  power  which 
has  been  committed  to  you  as  the  executive  of  a  great 
nation,  attend  to  the  misery  wrought  by  an  anarch- 
istic lust  for  dollars.  Without  your  speedy  aid 
the  poor  and  the  needy,  betrayed  by  the  state,  may 
be  slaughtered  to  the  last  smiling  babe. 


THE  "DEATH  SPECIAL"  OF  THE  COLORADO  COAL  OPERATORS 

The  armored  automobile,  equipped  with  a  machine  gun  and  manned  by 
six  Baldwin-Feltz  murderers,  who  murdered  and  intimidated  the  strikers 
during  the  early  part  of  the  strike. 


\ 


